La Zeppa, Freemans Bay

From left: profiteroles with cream and chocolate sauce, gorgonzola with honeycomb and truffle oil, and lemon and lime curd tarts. Picture / Carolyn Robertson

Herald rating: * * * *

I've never really regarded tapas as a satisfactory dining experience. Well, it's entrees, isn't it? You usually end up with a table full of stuff that doesn't go with other stuff. And you have to share.

I thought our night at La Zeppa was going to disintegrate early on. This is what happens when you get three very bossy women (who hate sharing) and two pig-headed blokes who have yet to give in to the inevitable wisdom of giving in to three very bossy women. One of the blokes - the physicist (which figures) - said: "I'll have the olives". I said: "You can't have olives." I mean, honestly you can stay home and have bloody olives. He had the olives.

So we ended up with a selection of fishy things from the cold part of the menu. There was a bruschetta with smoked cod, tomato confit and black olive oil (it's so dark inside La Zeppa that it could have been orange for all I know); more bruschetta with crab, anchovy and tomato oil, beetroot cured salmon; a smoked snapper dill and Pernod dip with flatbread. This was all very good, even the olives.

But getting this lot to order properly had already proved to be as easy as herding cats.

I went outside to get away from them. I didn't really want a fag at all. It was really, really funny when I got locked out. La Zeppa really should fit some handles to the outside of those French doors. Or perhaps this is deliberate. My lot certainly thought that my having to bang on the glass to attract their attention was funnier than the waiter singing happy birthday at another table.

We had hot things. A miso-cured pork belly, chicken potstickers, roast globe artichokes with pancetta - all of which were fought over. The cedar smoked venison stuffed with goats cheese and those ghastly sundried tomato things weren't. I don't know how these came to be ordered: they must have snuck it in while I was locked out. I wasn't too sure about the giant cockles either but I ordered those and I should have known that giant cockles would be chewy. They were.

The great thing, or one of the great things about La Zeppa, is that it does tapas size puds. Would four pud things be too many? we asked the waitlady. She said you could never have too much pud. That was what we wanted to hear.

We managed to eat our way through two plates of tiny profiteroles because we couldn't decide whether we wanted them with chocolate or caramel sauce. I thought the choux pastry was a tiny bit soggy but everyone else looked like cats who had literally got the cream. We also had three perfect little lemon and lime curd tarts and a gorgeous piece of gorgonzola which came with honeycomb and truffle oil.

The really great thing about all of this, and there was quite a bit of it, was that it was only entrees so we could safely say we'd hardly eaten a thing.

We liked it very much at La Zeppa. It is a relative of Vivace which has been around long enough to become an Auckland institution and, on my last visit there, the food tasted like it had become institutionalised.

The room at La Zeppa is obviously related to the one at Vivace: it's a big booming space with a central bar and there are candles and displays of food like oil and beans and cans of tomatoes. I don't know whether they are interior design or for sale but it's a bit like eating in a posh grocer's shop and this is quite cosy.

Perhaps too cosy. Some silly bint brought her dog. One of those tiny things the size of an entree. Poor thing. It came out for the night in one of those stupid cages disguised as a bag. I wanted to know whether I could bring my Doberman in. They said no I could not (this was the right answer) and said that the Doberman's entree had already been asked to leave.

Honestly, aren't people silly?

At La Zeppa they're very smart: the menu is too, and so is the service.

It was a very good night. And we hardly ate a thing.

Address: 33 Drake St, Freemans Bay

Phone: (09) 379 8167

From the menu: Hereford prime carpaccio with truffle oil, rocket and parmigiano, $10.50; spiced sardines with caramelised fennel and grapefruit essence, $9; plum cakes with creme fraiche, $9

Vegetarian: Actually this would be an excellent place to take a vegetarian. They could pick away at their olives and rocket salad, while all the more potstickers for me.

Wine list: By the glass, ample and interesting; even better by the bottle

Bottom line: Terrific food, terrific service. Gives tapas a good name. Good value too: $248 for five including two bottles of wine