This newish arrival on the Ponsonby strip employs the middle names of its proprietors, Tobias Ward and Brad Roebuck. Partners in life and in business, they deploy their flamboyant aesthetic inclinations in a fitout that is far too fabulous to be called garish: gold mirror-ball light fittings; greenery overhead; a marble bar; a wall of what looks like pressed tin (a nod perhaps to the old ceilings of the neighbourhood villas). It's upbeat and lovely, though the visual impression makes it seem colder than it probably is.
Oddly, they've made about half the tables leaners, with high stools (more oddly, they directed our trio, whose combined ages nudge 200, towards one of them). For a place that's more eatery than bar, it's an odd decision that conspires against a welcoming feel.
The boys' backgrounds in hospo are broader than they are deep, it's fair to say but they work the floor themselves and plainly love it. Ward, who kept apologising for his Yorkshire accent, is the kind of guy who gives a rundown of the componentry of a dish when he places it before you. But he's not doing that naff, slightly snobbish thing they do at fine-dining places, using words you never heard before for things that you know well (a hash brown might be a "pomme de terre gateau", for example); rather, he's communicating his excitement about what's coming up and he doesn't want you to miss any of it.
