Phone: (09) 360 2122
Rating out of 10: Food: 9, Service: 10, Value: 8, Ambience: 9
One of the most interesting things about Sidart in Ponsonby Rd is that it takes fine dining to its own new level - for me, anyway. Head up the dark wood stairs, open the door and you walk into a surprisingly small oasis of velvety calm.
Almost every night owner and star chef Sid Sahrawat is there but on the night we visited he was keeping an eye on his new city start-up, Cassia. He may have crept in later, but by then we were having too much fun to notice.
On the first Tuesday of every month, Sahrawat and his team dream up a new menu, presumably based on what's exciting them and what's in season. Throughout the month, the dedicated chefs work on their dishes, tweak them, perfect them, so that by the time we arrived, at the end of July, they must have been almost at the peak of their game. And then they would set about inventing a completely different combination of flavours for the following month.
The only decisions you have to make are whether you want to eat five or eight courses, and which wines you want to drink, unless you choose the wine-matching option. You can, of course, demand to see a list of all eight dishes on offer and choose those that most appeal, but we decided to let the chefs take control, and they did: even to the extent of sending different dishes for the "gentlemen and ladies".