Sago

By EWAN McDONALD for viva

"Kiwi Chef Trains With CIA" could have been the headline for this piece. Scott Wright, chef/proprietor of Sago, has just returned from one of the world's best cooking schools, the Culinary Institute of America in California. The CIA, for short.

The Restaurant Association awarded the scholarship because it likes to reward our top chefs with a stint overseas to check out trends and study under world experts.

It's yet another honour for a chef who has won numerous Culinary Fare medals since 1985.

At their earlier restaurant, the popular and neighbourly Mediteran in Torbay, Scott and wife Jenny were twice named Corbans Wine and Food Challenge best brasserie, and they won and were finalists for best service.

Only a few months after opening Sago, they won best service, were named in the top six restaurants, and had a couple more certificates from the good folk at Corbans.

All that, and the fact that this is Auckland's month for the Montana Wine and Food Challenge, took us to Sago, in the big site that was previously home to Tony's, a Fat Ladies Arms and the Britannia. High-beamed, bar to the right, restaurant to the left, it's not the elegant room you'd imagine as home to all those awards.

It could have been designed by the anonymous brewery draftsman whose career reached its defining moment with the Hillcrest Tavern next to Waikato University in the 1970s. If there's a lighting designer in Takapuna looking for work, he or she could make a pitch to bring the illuminations into this decade.

On a midweek night the bar is slowly emptying and the restaurant filling. The crowd is all ages, car dealers from across the road, office groups from the Takapuna CBD just down Lake Rd, blue-rinses.

We don't get as far as the reception desk before one of the many cheery young wait-things collars us and steers us to a table. They're extremely efficient, as they'd have to be, because they're dealing with big numbers every night, both in people to serve and choices on the menu.

We started with wedges of pizza bread, crisp and salty, sweet onion on top, passing up entrees because the suggestions looked heavyweight for appetisers and the meals going to nearby tables were Shore-sized portions rather than inner-city nibbles.

Wright's Montana Challenge main is a denver leg of venison, oven roasted, served over mustard-infused mash, with a mixed mushroom jus and berry dip. There was overkill of dip and jus; with the rare meat in the middle, it recalled a particularly graphic episode of The Sopranos (you know, the one where ... ) Ann's twice-cooked crispy skin duck wasn't. It was unappetisingly greasy.

Some of our "BBQ seasonal vegetables", such as the eggplant, were cool; others, like the broccoli, were extremely hot. An interesting contrast.

Ann looked at the guy at the next table, enjoying his steak and chips with an extra bowl of chips.

"I should remember, when in Rome ... " was what I think she said.

We'd selected a bottle of the wine matched to the Challenge dish, Corbans Private Bin Marlborough pinot noir 01. As the enthusiastic and knowledgeable server mentioned, it's an unusual example that needs food to bring out the cherry and raspberry flavours with a hint of chocolate.

The chocolate silk dessert was a hefty slice of tart set off with delicious honey and pecan ice-cream, the short blacks strong and too bitter.

Sago reminds how hard it is to combine a successful bar and stylish restaurant under the same roof. It works well enough at Soul and Euro, but there are compromises, and they're often in the food and ambience column.

We'd gone to Sago because of the chef's reputation and its place on the Corbans (now Montana) honours board. Frankly, we were disappointed.

Open: Seven days 7.30am-late

Owners: Scott and Jenny Wright

Chef: Scott Wright

Maitre d': Jenny Wright

Food: Modern Kiwi brasserie

On the menu: Ostrich loin rubbed with horopito spices and garlic, oven seared, served over a roast honey pear and pecan salad with a verjuice essence $15.50

Mushroom tomato and kikorangi blue cheese pie with a herb crust, house mustard pickled vegetables, cheese croutons and petite salad $20.50

Tournedos of eye fillet panfried, served with an olive crostini, bacon bearnaise, manuka honey and onion jam, creamy spinach and shiitake mushroom jus $27.50

The already famous decadent chocolate silk served with stewed berries, honey and pecan ice cream $10.50

Vegetarian: Plenty of options on the menu, plus pastas and pizzas

Wine: Solid, Kiwi-influenced list, mostly in the $25-$40 range

Smoking: Close (3m from us) but no cigars

Noise: Beats from the bar

Bottom line: Chef Scott and maitre d' Jenny Wright have racked up honours for his cooking and her front-of-house service at Mediteran and Sago since 1997. At this big bar-restaurant they serve a bewildering menu of brasserie favourites, pastas and pizzas. On this night service was great, ambience not so good and food disappointing.

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