Herald rating: * * * 1/2
Address: 108 Ponsonby Rd
Phone: (09) 361 5858
Website: www.prohibition.co.nz
Open: Tues-Sat 5.30-late
Cuisine: Classic European
From the menu: Buttered langoustine, seared scallops on sweet-corn puree, tomato fondue, ginger veloute $22.50; Spiced pork belly, stuffed trotters, colcannon, quail egg, wilted spinach, mustard oil $38; Lemon thyme custard, gingernut crumble, grapefruit sorbet, citrus and candied fennel salad $16.50
Vegetarian: Soup, mushroom medley
Wine: Old and New World
KEY POINTS:
A park turned up beside the old car outside the new place. The car that came in any colour you liked so long as it was black. It was brown. Carparks had a habit of turning up when Scarface and Doll-face did.
Doors opened. Two large men in three-piece pinstripe suits and fedoras standing on the pavement were paid to make that happen.
The restaurant was refurbished expensively in dark wood and darker wood, cabinets lined with vintage decanters, figured rugs and aged dining-tables and chairs, made from real wood from a time before rainforests had been heard of or had their feelings taken into the accounts. Heavy cut-glass goblets. Bone-handled cutlery.
Waiters waited. Pascal and Manuel, their Euro backgrounds as obvious as their names.
The Limey sat in a darkened corner studying a Campari and soda and drinking in the menu.
Pascal and Manuel appeared beside the Tiffany-esque light with white-leatherbound menus, cartes like giant playing cards. They plucked giant bibs and tied them around the diner's necks. "Just like New York in the 30s," commented The Limey, who looked just too young to remember.
"It's got the makings of a more than usually interesting cellar, especially for one that describes itself as a `work in progress'."
"They've got John Ingle as sommelier," Scarface tossed in, "from Number 5, Vinnie's ... "
They ordered. Scarface took a walk around the saloon. And the salons behind it and upstairs: three rooms, for dining, to see and not be seen.
The bathrooms were vast enough to contain a bath. Slightly less acreage than one, or two, formerly Russian republics. Basins, bowls and fittings were copper, or a not-too-cheap imitation of it.
Vintage Euro food: crayfish bisque with lemon crème fraiche; roast quail breast and dates stuffed with goats' cheese. Slow-cooked duck leg and neck, stuffed with black pudding, pear and pistachios, red cabbage and buttered turnips. Monkfish, wrapped in potato, mushroom and broad bean casserole, artichoke puree.
"It is," suggested The Limey, happily nibbling the black pudding, "classic French cuisine."
"The chef," Scarface said, "is Ryan Arboleda. Recently of Bracu, and he's brought the kitchen brigade with him."
They agreed the man had a sure touch with honest, robust heavy dishes _ and a lighter one where it's needed, in a lemon thyme brulee with ginger and grapefruit flavours, or chocolates fondant, mousse, sorbet, biscotti.
"You'd come," suggested Scarface, "for the theme, for the fun of a place that's completely different from other finer-dining restaurants in Auckland."
"It's nice to be" added Doll-face, "in the sort of place that you could dress up for."
They looked around the restaurant, 20 months in the remaking. "Brave move," said Scarface.
"What," said Jude on the way home, "is with this Scarface, Doll-face and The Limey carry-on? "
"Getting into the theme," I protested.
"I don't see you as Scarface," she sighed. "Maybe Hairy McClary."
