Dessert of bean curd beignet with coconut, licorice soil and pineapple. Photo / Babiche Martens
Herald Rating: * * * * *
Address: 365 Dominion Rd Mt Eden
Phone: 623 3140
Open: Dinner Mon-Sat, Lunch Fri
Cuisine: Innovative
From the menu:
* Smoked salmon, candied fennel, brandade, lemon sorbet, watercress $21
* Venison loin, slow-cooked beetroot, cocoa, medjool dates, dukkah $33
* Rosewater panna cotta, strawberry sorbet, saffron and bayleaf $15
Vegetarian: Own menu
Wine: Sommelier selection
"It's like standing in front of an installation at the Museum of Modern Art," Jude said. "You're impressed, you think you like it, but you're not altogether sure what the artist meant."
She was thinking about our previous evening at Merediths.
After wow 'em stints at The Grove
and Vinnies, it's clear Michael Meredith has been reading cookbooks during the break (literally: fractured arm) while he found and built this self-titled restaurant on Dominion Rd.
Possibly Ferran Adria and Heston Blumenthal; almost certainly Thomas Keller and Tetsuya Wakuda. Art Food.
The site is post-modern: Valentine's all but opposite, a streetscape of noodle-houses, curry joints, Thai takeaways. Frosted-glass doors hide traffic and the view; two tiny dining rooms are embossed ivory wallpaper and black textiles, to show off the food or match the diners' decor.
Only 28 seats, maybe meeting some arcane licensing law, more likely because this is chef-intensive food for The Man, tasting and basting his stuff in full view in the open kitchen.
As the room, so the menu: five entrees, five mains, three vegetarian meals. Each dish is a considered combination of smaller ideas. Take my entree: a, mushroom tortellini; b, five-spice oxtail ragout; c, lentils. The parts, rich and brown on the plate; the whole, intense slam-dunk on the palate.
Or Jude's vegetarian inspiration - beetroot gnocchi in a hazelnut butter, sweet 'n' soured with olives, halloumi and, from Grandma's pantry, golden raisins.
Senses, and tastebuds, sparkling, to the mains. Jude has been the queen of pork belly recently, but passed when she saw "black pudding" on the side. Good, because I revelled in the square of glistening and crackling pork, sweet knobs of fillet, rather mild coins of THAT sausage. Peas, whole and pureed with rosemary, again from the pantry.
Tantalising and titillating ... that was her duck. Perfectly pink meat. Subtle vanilla sauce. Cauliflower, pancetta and, again, raisins as the counterpoint.
Just when you thought it couldn't get any better - dessert. The kitchen is really flying by now, with tricks and twists like a bean-curd beignet (a cigarette of deep-fried tofu) to dip into coconut, pineapple and the divine mush of "licorice soil". Unadulterated gluttony of a Valhrona chocolate cake, coffee pearls (Keller does this, coated tapioca), and a billiard ball of beetroot and armagnac. Beetroot and chocolate for pudding? You bet.
The wine list is small but perfectly informed, in the capable corkscrew of Cameron Douglas, known for sterling or silver services at Vinnies. Like Chef, Douglas doesn't compromise. His wines are as street-smart as Dominion Rd, but higher rent.
Overseas in opening week, his voice was behind our waitress' suggestions: '07 Mills Reef viognier against gnocchi, '05 Bridge Pah syrah with the tortellini (now there's a brave call at entree time). One foreign entry: '04 Fattoria Mancini Focara pinot noir to the duck, '05 Envoy chardonnay to the pork.
Quibbles? Perhaps the service was a trifle quick, five or 10 minutes too little between courses. We would have liked to linger longer as two do at The French Cafe or Cibo. Expect the nuance as the restaurant matures.
And the sound, or lack: she found the room quiet, could overhear conversations. For me, the murmuring music. Norah Jones should never be played in public, or for that matter private, places.
If your idea of a meal out is steak and chips or a curry, Merediths may not be the place. If you want to be entranced, stimulated, challenged, this is a restaurant that is about food, cooking, possibilities rather than inevitabilities. I want to eat anything from this man's kitchen.
"Michael Meredith is a genius," I said. "Must be," said Jude. "He got you to eat tofu."
