Number 5, Auckland City

Herald rating: * * * *

The normal approach at most restaurants is for the wine to be selected to complement the food. At Number 5 it's hard to avoid the feeling that the meals are chosen to back the spectacular wine list. Certainly sommelier John Ingle is an assiduous promoter of his wares.

He must have been disappointed with one table on our visit, a group of tourists who appeared to restrict their drinking to water.

The rest of us, a reasonably mixed bunch, did our best.

Frayed by an unrewarding encounter with an automatic parking ticket machine — for "automatic" read "knackered" — I found his first suggestion of a Carrick Pinot Gris went a long way to soothing the troubled spirit.

I'm not quite sure at whom the food offerings are pitched. They are of a slightly retro and substantial nature, perhaps to lull the suspicions of guests from the Langham who are venturing from the hotel but don't want to go too far physically or gastronom-ically, or perhaps the inclination to the plain rather than fancy is because the main clientele is of a conservative frame of mind. Whatever the reason it is clearly successful and groans of repletion provided a soundtrack along with the unassuming jazzy music. And by the end of the evening we were groaning too.

The duck liver pate was extremely rich, only marginally offfset by the sharpness of the accompanying rhubarb, and a reminder of why I don't often bother with commercial pates. To follow, I stupidly went for another little nostalgia item, that flashest of meat pies, a beef Wellington, forgetting this was likely to contain a pate, too. And so it did. But, never mind, you only die once. The meat juices satisfactorily suffused the pastry and the lot rested on a potato galette.

Our other first course choice was another rich little number, the smoked snapper, which came masked but not hidden in a creamy sauce and with a puff-pastry case. It was good, as was the roast duck, no experiments here, just melting meat with a killer skin.

After this it seemed absurd to go for dessert. So we did, partly as an excuse for a little dessert wine. The recommended wines with our mains — a Fromm La Strada merlot/malbec and a move from the Carrick Pinot Gris to the Carrick Pinot Noir — had been so well judged we thought we would test one more suggestion.

The offering on which I had my eye was not available by the glass, although many are, so we followed the advice to try the Schubert Dolce, a remarkable example of what can happen to muller thurgau if you know what you are doing.

To accompany this we had the trio of sorbets, all vibrant and tangy, and a chocolate torte of a comprehensively chocolatey nature but, fortunately, in a portion just small enough so as not to have to leave any.

Not the sort of evening recommended by a dietititian but, when played against a background of good service and the pleasing old world, real-fire surroundings, it's worth going on a couple of days of macrobiotic yoghurt in atonement.

WHERE: Number 5, 5 City Rd, City. (09)309 9273
OUR MEAL: $208 for two. Three courses each, plus five glasses of wine, mineral water and coffees.
OUR WINE: Our choices by the glass $11 to $14.50. By the bottle from $34 to $430.