Paramount, Auckland city

Paramount's double lamb cutlets. Picture / Glenn Jeffrey

Herald rating: * * *

"No one knows what it's like to be the bad man, to be the sad man behind blue eyes..."

Well, that's a cheering little ditty to come warbling over the mojito, the pinot noir and the twice-cooked duck, isn't it? Cole Porter or Fats Waller, it ain't. Pete Townsend, it is: I remember it back in 19somethingmumble on Who's Next, one of several songs that The Whirling Armed One dedicated to his spiritual mentor, Meher Baba. It has been uplifted, shorn of its religious content and cojones, by a combo much favoured by the youth of today, Limp Bizkit.

They were playing it in Paramount on the night we went, at least three times inside an hour, and I mention it because (a) the ancient anthem reminded that Borders, just around the corner, had Bob Dylan's autobiography on special, and I toddled down next day to get it; (b) it provided a topic of conversation about inappropriate tunes for restaurants to play _ Tom Waits, Nighthawks At The Diner; Arlo Guthrie, Alice's Restaurant (and isn't there always some sad 70s survivor at a party who can recite the whole damn thing?); (c) why is it that any restaurant that serves brown onion soup is entirely unapologetic about slapping Je ne regrette rien on the turntable?

Music in restaurants can be reduced, to use a cooking pun, to one word: why? It's okay in the laidback gastro-pub where it's more about the atmosphere and the alcohol than the food. In halfway serious restaurants we can converse and consume with Frankie or Ella or k.d. lang, if not Michael Buble with the bubbly. At a top of the wozzer restaurant, the only reason that the music is there is to fill in the gaps where the people should be.

Possibly that is appropriate at Paramount. Formerly a partnership involving executive chef Trevor Griggs and manager Emma Twiner, the sole owner is now Adrien de Croy, the media-shy multi-millionaire who invented some gizmo for the internet years ago and has slung a fair whack of it back into the local music industry, from recording studios to the Auckland Youth Orchestra, the feelers and Goldenhorse, for which some of you may be grateful.

Oh, yes, the gaps where the people should be. It isn't the first time we've noticed this little problem with Paramount: it was thus when we reviewed the place in 2002 and put it on our A-list of Auckland's top restaurants and positively begged you to come and try Trevor Griggs' cooking. Ditto last year.

On this visit Griggs seems to have pared back his style. Where there may have been six flavours (his classically inclined menus always specify every component _ "Apple Dressed Red Cabbage Almond Celery Slaw"), on the current carte you are more likely to find four simpler descriptives: "Fillet of Aged Beef, Horseradish Fondant Potato, Sugar Snap Peas, Pearl Onion Glaze" or "Loin of Lamb, Pumpkin Soubric, Pancetta Brussel Sprouts, Baked Beetroot, Red Wine Reduction". Okay, that's five. But the meals have a lighter feeling, perhaps a nod to these lower carb, less-sauced times.

(Two more asides: Why do chefs use words like Pumpkin Soubric instead of "a creamy, nutmeggy thingy that we do with pumpkin in the blender that other people do with asparagus"? Why does Paramount write its prices as "Thirty two dollars" instead of $32?)

Griggs is a superb technician and his kitchen staff carry out his instructions with panache. The snapper touched the base of the pan just long enough to sear it and seal the juices before it met the dinner plate and was introduced to salad greens and salsa. The journey from pan to plate took longer for the duck: cooked twice, immersed in Asian flavours and surrounded with eastern vegetables. It has been a signature dish and a bloody good reason, on its own, to find one's way to Paramount.

As are the desserts, for this is a restaurant where Chef takes time and trouble over them. Even when it reads as simply as "Trio of Ice Cream & Sorbet, Pistachio Poppyseed Sesame Tuille. Sauces to Match", Griggs writes a poem in sweets, and his staff found a sonnet, too: Lincoln ice wine.

Yes, this has been a column of digressions. Sorry, but Paramount, has that effect: it can be difficult to arrest attention in an industrial, empty room, even when the food is of this quality, when the restaurant is striving to provide the sort of fine dining that, say, the French Café does effortlessly.

Despite excellent service, great cocktails, a superlative wine list, Paramount gave off a tired air. "Perhaps it's more of a late-night venue," you might think, "because it's deep in the inner city"; but no, this is a restaurant that promotes the idea of eating here before a show at the nearby Aoteas, Civics, and St Jameses. Maybe it's just the feeling around downtown Auckland at the moment. Like that motor race: great idea, wrong place.

Ground Floor New Art Gallery

Lorne St, Auckland 

Open: Lunch Mon-Fri Dinner Mon-Sat

Owner: Adrien de Croy

Manager: Emma Twiner

Executive Chef: Trevor Griggs

Head Chef: Stuart Rogan

On the menu:

* Blackberry sage rubbed rabbit loin, sauteed leeks and apples, cassis jus $17.50

* Loin of lamb, pumpkin soubric, pancetta brussel sprouts, baked beetroot, red wine reduction $30

* Almond pear frangipane tart, mascarpone, red wine syrup $12.50

Wine: They keep a fine cellar here

Bottom line: Trevor Griggs, one of Auckland's best chefs, has pared back his style to suit these lower carb, less sauced times. But as a fine-dining restaurant in the inner city, Paramount still seems to have trouble filling its tables.