www.soulbar.co.nz
I'm not sure I like the idea of restaurants and bars getting their roles mixed up. I suppose it goes back to when I was growing up and bars were places you went to drink, while restaurants -- at least in my home town -- were places best avoided by anyone with a palate. And even when I moved to places where restaurants didn't come with formica tabletops and vinegar sprinklers, I still regarded bars as places to drink rather than eat.
Then, of course, I arrived in New Zealand, where the menu is often as big a drawcard in a bar as the tap beer selection and where no one gives a hoot about whether bars are places for eating or drinking; they're obviously places for both.
It gets even more confusing when places actually describe themselves as bar and restaurant, thereby stoking my residual existential angst about drinking in eateries and eating in drinkeries. But I have become something of a convert recently after a visit to Soul Bar and Bistro in the Viaduct.
It's a good example of how a restaurant can also have a functioning bar area without making it merely look like a place where you wait for your table. The bar area is big, bright and comfortable, with its own deck and a slightly looser atmosphere than the restaurant part.
