Proprietors Dana Johnston and JP Schmidt, who are behind Meadow in Meadowbank, call this a bar and kitchen, and it does its best to be both even if the babble and booming music from the bar rather dominates the dining area.
But a handsome fire - burning real wood - adds to the atmosphere and the food reflects an attentiveness in the kitchen that is well ahead of what you would expect from bar food.
The website's assertion that "we are pride to add foreign flare and personality with multinational touch to our team" is hard to gainsay, since it has apparently been written by someone whose native language is not English, but our servers were apparently native, and jolly good they were, too.
Better still was the food they brought, which had both flair and personality and wasn't noticeably foreign to anyone who has seen words like quesadilla, wasabi and harissa before.
That quesadilla - it's Mexico's answer to the toasted sandwich - came with a big blob of creamy mozzarella, though the grilled corn salsa was really cold charred ears of corn, and a bit of warmth on a perishing night wouldn't have gone amiss.
The rest of the menu is divided into paddock, ocean and garden, which is a nice touch. It's also reassuringly short with only four items in each section. It's a good rule of thumb for dining out that the quality will be in inverse proportion to the length of the menu.
We were much impressed by a dish of grilled butternut and spinach which occupied that happy half-way house between a baked-vegetable dish with spinach garnish and a full-hearted spinach salad: feta and orange made a nice contrast of different astringencies and the so-called "terracotta dressing" was lent punch with what I fancy was harissa paste.
A "sirloin skillet" was a bit silly, since the shiny-new skillet was just a serving dish and hadn't been heated, so the steak, which came with winter veg like a mini-roast, had gone tepid. Much nicer was seared tuna, crusted with wasabi and sesame seeds and served, most unusually, with a mushroom ragout. It shouldn't have worked, but it did.
Having ignored our waiter's advice, we had over-ordered so had no room for dessert, but the food is certainly worth trying - if you are in the neighbourhood and can get a table.
Verdict: A real fire and good food make a winning combination
Plates $15-$24
Cheers
By Joelle Thomson, joellethomson.com
Wine master comes to NZ
She buys wine for the Queen, she was the first journalist in the world to pass the difficult "Master of Wine" qualification and she has more than 246,000 likes on her website.
Jancis Robinson's presence at Pinot Noir 2017, on Wellington's waterfront, is likely to ensure a high turn-out. The 2017 event was originally scheduled for January 2016 to make way for the first NZ International Sauvignon Blanc conference in Marlborough, in early 2016. Confused? Well, the organisers felt that if New Zealand had two large international wine conferences early in 2016, it would be too big an ask for wine lovers to attend both. So, the 2017 Pinot Noir gig is where wine drinkers can hear Jancis Robinson speak and taste pinot to their hearts' content.
Drink of the week
What: 2014 Matawhero Gisborne Chardonnay
How much: $18-$23
From: Glengarry's stores
Why: It's a damned tasty ripple in the new chardonnay wave, the trend towards crisper chardonnays which have more citrusy flavours, higher acidity and still retain full-bodied smoothness. If you're a fan of big buttery chardonnay, try this wine's big sibling, the 2014 Matawhero Reserve Gisborne Chardonnay. All the bells and you-know-whats are present and counted.
