Number 5 Fine Wine Restaurant

By EWAN McDONALD for viva

Christmas comes but twice a year at Number 5. Martina Lutz and John Ingle have been playing Santa Claus among midwinter Yuletide food and decorations for the past couple of weeks and will do so until the weekend.

With white and gold festoons, wreaths, trees and open fires, eating the special menu of pumpkin soup, roast turkey with cranberry, bacon, roast potatoes, glazed carrots and traditional pudding in one of the restaurant's intimate dining-rooms must seem like tucking into Christmas dinner at someone's home.

However, this is only temporary comfort and joy. Deeper changes at Number 5 have made it into a better restaurant and lifted it into the small clique of Auckland restaurants that can be said to offer refined dining.

The evolution began a year or so back when Lutz took over the lease on the former brick and ivy home behind the Sheraton that has housed restaurants since the turn of the 70s. Most notably, the Littlejohn (Sails) family's deservedly famous Five City Road; Sydney super-chef Dietmar Sawyere carried on his brief affair with the City of Sails from there.

Lutz, who has been in the hospitality game for 30 years, in her native Black Forest and at Auckland addresses like The Other Side, was running Merlot, the wine bistro in O'Connell St, in the CBD. At Number 5 she and Ingle decided to replicate Merlot's more rustic menu. Running the same menu at two restaurants might have pleased the cost-accountants but the punters were not convinced. Ingle suggests that the idea wasn't right in the upmarket venue.

Enter Mook Sutton, a Kiwi chef making his name as a wunderkind on the Toronto ranges. Sutton and Lutz ditched the country-comfort food. Dishes like house-made fettuccini with wild mushrooms, olives, goat's cheese and rosemary appeared before Sutton disappeared back to Canada. Lutz is back in the kitchen, and the width of her smile hints that she just might be enjoying life with her team there.

The joy of eating at Number 5 is matched by the joy of drinking very good wine. The restaurant's liquid asset is Ingle, an industry veteran whose expertise was recognised when he was enlisted to judge the first Wine List of the Year awards. Best just to tell him what you're eating and let him do the rest.

My eyebrows went north when he suggested accompanying a salad of so-thin-it's-see-through venison and star anise salami, cherry tomatoes, baby leaves and balsamic with a viognier, largely because I'd had an unfortunate viognier experience in Sydney. He was right.

Ann chose the gorgeous fist-fight of flavours that comes with the king prawn dish you see in the picture, and Ingle poured 2000 Cloudy Bay chardonnay.

For the next course I slipped into comfort-food territory because the upbeat waitress mentioned that Lutz was cooking her signature dish, and you can't pass up a generous plate of her spicy, glistening, fall-off-the-fork pork belly (with dreamy creamy mash and green beans) when you have the chance (wine: 2000 Van Asch pinot noir). Must return for the roasted duck with citrus and caramel sauce - not just because the morsel I was offered tasted so good, but because Ingle produced a glass of the 2001 Craggy Range Gimblett Gravel merlot and gave it to someone across the table who wouldn't share with me.

He found a rare Kiwi fortified red that we hadn't tried before, 2001 Clearview Estate Sea Red, a stunning accompaniment to a wee platter of Belgian chocolates, dried apricots, biscotti.

Open: Mon-Sat from 5.30pm

Owner-chef: Martina Lutz

Host: John Ingle

Food: Contemporary NZ cuisine

On the menu:

Kumara-crusted king prawns with spiced crab bisque and mango salsa $17.50

Venison steak with potato galette, vegetables and tamarillo couli $32.50

House-made fettuccini with wild mushrooms, olives, goat's cheese and rosemary $24.50

Vanilla brioche bread-and-butter pudding on strawberry soup $12

Vegetarian: Nothing is too much trouble

Wine: "Life is too short to drink bad wine," they say, and they mean it

Smoking: Ah ... no

Noise: Mellow

Disabled access/toilets: Entrance is fine, toilets upstairs

Parking: Free carpark next door

Changes at Number 5 have made it into a better restaurant, and lifted it into the clique of Auckland restaurants that can be said to offer refined dining. Owner-chef Martina Lutz has ditched the country-comfort food for a more grown-up menu and clearly enjoys working with her kitchen team, while John Ingle's encyclopaedic knowledge of NZ wines and winemaking enlivens and elevates any visit.


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