Soul

By EWAN McDONALD for Viva

We wanted to see Tony and Pat's new apartment at the Viaduct so, after aperitifs and admiring the bird's-eye maple fittings, the four of us ambled through the boat harbour to the alimentary canal, those restaurants and bars that (thank heavens, finally) crowd the waterside.

Last time we went to this corner of the Viaduct, and it wasn't that long ago, it was called Finz and was a very expensive seafood restaurant that thought rather a lot of itself. The punters didn't. It is now Soul Bar and Bistro, part-owned by the queen of Auckland chefs, Judith Tabron, and Mr Eric Watson, who is apparently well known in rugby league circles as well as having had an interest in things Finzy.

At this point let's clear the (h)air: we're featuring this place today, not because the chef is blonde, even though she is featured in our cover story, but because for 24 years Tabron has cooked up some of this city's most innovative and exciting restaurants. The legendary Ramses, the iconic Mikano, even a roll of the dice as Sky City's executive chef.
Soul, with its 70s-disco-ish logo, might be seen as a change of direction for her. That chap who writes the Morsels column a page or two back says we are supposed to call places like this "gastropubs". Cool bars serving hot food, or is it the other way around?

Made over by Hugh Lane, the new place is open, clean, white, natural wood. Not unlike Tony and Pat's apartment around the corner. It was rather more crowded, though - we had a table at the back of the room on a hot night, although we'd booked a couple of days earlier, a frustrating exercise involving several calls and some time on hold. Getting a poor table seemed all the more unfair because Tony has refereed about as many games of league as the bloke at the good table down the front has played.

The designer has put the dining section on a mezzanine overlooking the drinking area. That has a marble bar, fibre-optic cables running through columns, a sound system and discreet TV. You can take the Kiwi out of the booze barn but don't take the Super 12 as well. Outside, part of the terrace has been covered to deflect Auckland's four seasons in one evening.

Tabron's menu, devised with Greg Malouf of MoMo in Melbourne, reflects her earlier adventures in the food trade: the signature of fish cooked any of four ways (grilled, roasted, blackened or beer-battered), the famous grilled pork chop (with crackling, which had to be shared with the group). What she calls Soul food, which you could also call bar food, or mezze, but rather more than tapas, is offered to share or as starters: duck and hazelnut terrine; salmon carpaccio; marinated and fried calamari; large, roasted quail or crisp, stuffed zucchini flowers.

Good? Of course. Exceptional? Well, restaurants and (if we must use the word) gastropubs are different beasts. Bar-bistros need fewer staff, out front and in the kitchen, and the emphasis is on liquid rather than solid fare, and that showed with just a little less care than we might have expected going into our meals.

And with the Soul food running to $17.50 for the quail, those fish choices at $25-$27, and the meat and fowl mains nudging $30, the credit card will feel it's spent the night near the top of Parnell Rd or in the Metropolis.
Tabron says, "We want to be known for friendly service, as well as providing a menu for foodies or those just looking for some well-made fish and chips."

So it comes down to what you want from your night out: you don't go to the harbour, to a place full of some hundreds, expecting a romantic evening or quiet conversation.

Open: Daily from 11 am.

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