Jacques Restaurant, Tamaki Drive

The capsicum stuffed with blue vein, apple, tofu and vegetables.

Herald rating: * * 1/2

Really, I should have known better. But with the rise of the Viaduct I had come to believe my old maxim - that in this town the quality of the dining experience is inversely related to the restaurant's proximity to the waterfront - could be buried.

Maybe I should have recalled that the first attempt to open a quality restaurant in this old sewage pumping station back in the 80s, when Kelly Tarlton's first opened, was a dismal failure and that probably the building is cursed.

And yet when I rediscovered it one sunny Sunday morning, perched out over the water as it is with magnificent 180 degree views of the city, the harbour, and Devonport, and discovered that while it didn't serve brunch as advertised, Jacques indeed served dinner, I thought it might be worth a try. So yes it was the site that seduced me, as it should.

Yet when you arrive at a restaurant with a view like this, and it's a perfect late summer evening and the vista is at its finest, and it's a Thursday when most establishments would be enjoying steady business and you find you're the only diners there, well you start to feel silly already, although you maintain your optimism that the crowd, or at least somebody else, will be along a little later.

From a perfectly adequate wine list we ordered a bottle of Wither Hills Chardonnay ($46) and that was nice. We sipped and chatted and watched the kayakers on the water and the sun slip behind the Sky Tower and thought how lovely Auckland truly is and yes what a fabulous site for a restaurant.

Our entrees weren't too bad. My scallop salad was tasty and the molluscs moist although I suspect not fresh. Erin enjoyed her capsicum stuffed with blue vein, apple, tofu and vegetables. And Matthew quite liked his Tom Yaam Koong soup, even though the bread he ordered to fill the gap before the soup arrived, didn't make it to the table until the mains were ready.

Ah yes, the mains. I can't recall ever meeting such an elderly piece of salmon before, nor one that had been cooked into the texture of a gumboot. I never knew that was possible with salmon. I had a ghastly feeling on my way home that before the night was out I might be meeting that salmon again. And why serve it on a large mound of flavourless rice? It had been so long since Erin's prawns had been prawns that their texture, she said, was powdery. And the only interesting thing about Matthew's crabs was of course the struggle to crack them open. Okay, you get that with crabs.

I'd like to say that I did enjoy my caramel-flavoured cheesecake. Matthew could not say the same about his icecream sundae. And I should add that the service was friendly and it was very nice of them to keep the restaurant open just for us. And even the bathrooms have a lovely view.

Restaurant critics on the whole don't like to be cruel. And many will simply put a bad experience aside, not bore their readers with the detail of it, and avoid being the assassin who finally puts a struggling establishment under.

And I might have felt the same about this one, except for two things. Firstly, we handed over $185 for a truly substandard meal. But more importantly this restaurant occupies a prime Auckland site, on what is one of the most beautiful waterfronts of any city in the world, directly opposite a noted tourist attraction, which means unsuspecting tourists are at high risk of being lured through its doors. Reputations are at stake: Auckland's.

WHERE: Jacques Restaurant 18 Tamaki Drive, Orakei, ph 521 3930

OUR MEAL: $185 for three entrees, three mains and two desserts and one bottle of wine. ($46)

OUR WINES: By the glass $7.50 - $8.50, by the bottle $30 - $120.