Herald rating: * * 1/2
Address: Hilton Hotel, Princes Wharf
Phone: 978 2000
Web: www.whiterestaurant.co.nz
Open: 365 days
Cuisine: Contemporary
From the menu: Pan-roasted quail, cauliflower cream, pickled red cabbage, spiced currant jus $22; Pan-fried West Coast turbot fillet, pickled silverskin onion, roast yam, fish stock reduction $39; Pistachio pastry layered with cream, dark chocolate shavings, raspberry shield $15
Vegetarian: Own menu
Wine: Top shelf
KEY POINTS:
Before we kick off, this is a restaurant column and there will be no rugby jokes, though that is hard to write when thinking about the English side.
The Hilton By The Sea has a new mission for White, its signature restaurant. Something called Homegrown, love child of new executive chef, Cristiano De Martin.
The idea is "to discover the very best ingredients NZ has to offer and to champion them". Homegrown is not just about food, the website implores. "It's also about our relationships with our suppliers - we're working with more and more of the country's best producers, farmers and growers."
You might have expected the top-of-the-wozza restaurant at a five-star international hotel to be doing that since White first sailed the harbour blue in 2001. Perhaps the marketing department is creating a point of difference from the international hotel-restaurant with the world-renowned chef or the one with the first Kiwi truffles of the season ($45 or $80 the shave).
Jude and I braved a monsoon and a scrum in the carpark - oh, sorry - to try Homegrown and De Martin, whose food "has been described 'as artful as origami' by Conde Nast Traveler ... an elegant cooking style that respects and promotes the beautiful flavours of NZ ... simple, fresh and unpretentious" (the site again).
First choice on his menu is: which menu? The nine-course degustation (food and matched wines, $175); a la carte oysters, soups, entrees and mains; or the five-course vegetarian list (are oysters strictly vego?).
Jude sidestepped her planned entree - fennel and lemon risotto, scallops - when offered the oyster special: little Clevedon chaps, lightly battered with tempura and nori. They weren't. "The batter's not crisp," she reported. "I've had better from a fish 'n' chip shop."
My three slivers of Rotorua ostrich had barely made acquaintance with the char-griller. Of the soft, tepid polenta, the black pepper and cherry glaze, the pecan crumb ... "What's it like?" asked Jude. "Paris Hilton," I said. "Tasteless, no personality."
Three staff happened by, fascinated to know how we were enjoying the meal. And our wine, premium local matchings suggested on the menu. This was kind of each of them. Too kind.
Mains are balanced between fish and flesh: we felt red-blooded. Jude found her roast pork fillet "very rare". Chef's trimmings were homegrown: the meat de-glazed and glazed with verjus and its own juices, seasoned with horopito and lemon kelp, an apple and potato pave.
Lamb loin for me, roasted with garden herbs (whose garden?), parsnip crisps standing tall among a creme, of same; manuka smoked olives. It looked enticing ... "What's it like?" asked Jude. "Victoria Beckham," I said. "Lots of effort gone into its appearance but no style or character." Both meats tasted stewed, or steamed.
Duty suggested dessert. White chocolate mousse and a pear and almond flan were ... well, they just lay around the plate and demanded their $16, really.
The first test of White's new squad was disappointing. I've not met De Martin but several folk who have say he is a nice man and arrived from four years' cooking in Saudi with a decent reputation. He will need it, for it's odd how many people say, when you mention White, "I've never eaten a good meal there."
Perhaps it's because you could be eating at a five-star in Cairo, Bangalore or Auckland. What if they took that homegrown produce and infused it with the best of Kiwi style and talent, cooked to global standards? And lost the James Blunt CD?
