The Grove

By MICHELE HEWITSON for viva

It is a nice thing to eat your tea in a nice room, and the Grove is such a room. It is long and elegant, and it has little couches on the way in and an awful view.

The view should in no way be held against the Grove. And, if you don't happen to work where I work, perhaps you won't mind looking at the building opposite.

The new dwellers in the room have tried to warm what was a rather cool setting. They have done it with strelitzias and a palm in big pots, and some orange lampshades.

The Grove has been open since August 11 and on a Tuesday night the staff were hanging a painting to replace the one taken away by the artist when people were dining. This was quite exciting, apparently, but did leave a large blank wall.

The staff asked us whether we liked the painting and we said we weren't sure. They said they thought it was "grovey". I'm not sure what grovey means but the painting has plants in it, which I suppose gives you the gist.

The charming maitre'd said why didn't we have quite a lot of wine, have a look at it, and get back to him.

I might have said (but didn't): "What, get pissed at these prices?"

We were too busy eating by then and, stuff the painting, those entrees were the stuff that great menus are made on.

My ravioli langoustine with black pudding on a shallot puree with lobster butter shouldn't have worked. But it did, and the ravioli was a tiny miracle of what can happen when a kitchen knows what it is doing with flour, an egg and some eloquent dough-making.

The Telly Critic had a chorizo and onion tartlet. It came with grilled squid and something called, revoltingly, goat cheese froth. Never mind that (well, I did mind) this was pure zingy food that made your tastebuds grin. I could, possibly should, have stopped there.

A boned and stuffed quail, on a chestnut and cinnamon risotto with soused figs? If it's on the menu (for $29) it should work. The quail did; the tied-up little bird was tender and simple. That risotto was a nonsense. It could have been (it shouldn't have been) on the pudding menu.

TC's pork, as he crowed, was the goods. A grilled pork fillet with a lovely, melting square of confit belly topped with health-giving crackle, roasted fennel and quince. This was good, winter eat-then-hibernate fare.

Pudding. What's this? A blue cheese panna cotta with walnut fritters? Get off. They might as well have put that risotto on.

My savarin with rum and muscatel tasted like a stale doughnut soused in wine.

He had manuka honey brulee with lemon sorbet and lavender lassi, the last in a shotglass. This arrived on a long thin white plate and he looked at it, tried a bit of everything and said: "I don't understand this."

This is what I call a dear meal for two, even if they are two greedy types: $177.50. Admittedly this did include two dear glasses of wine each - "What at these prices?"

Admittedly the TV Critic is developing a taste for $15 glasses of wine. I'm encouraging this in the hope that he turns into a wine snob, in which case I will able to refer to him as the Nose, instead of the (TV) Eye, which is what those people who own the view over the road insist on calling him.

Another nice thing, at the Grove, is those little touches. I did like the tiny mother of pearl spoons in the salt dishes, with the pretty pistachio-painted insides. I do like salt and most places don't have spoons - and I'm not sticking salt on my food when you don't know whose fingers have been in it before you.

But I don't quite understand the Grove either. It is doing some really lovely, really adventurous food but some of it tastes as though nobody has actually tasted it.

When the photographer went to take the picture, one of the owners said something about how restaurants in the States are given three months before they're reviewed. Well, if you're open, and unless you're charging half price, you're for review.

And I do like your place. I like your room and your sense of adventure. I just don't like silly risottos and mad, sour things in shot glasses for pud.

I do think this could be one of the best places in town to have your tea, if they would just stop trying to be too clever and concentrate on their very good cooking.

Chef: Michael Meredith

Owners: Annette and Michael Dearth

Open: Mon-Fri for lunch and dinner; Saturday, dinner only. Closed Sunday


On the menu: Northland smoked snapper, roasted yam, avocado and cucumber with Japanese dressing, $17; seared eye fillet of ostrich with shitake and enoki mushrooms, fragrant couscous and soy reduction, $28; Greek yoghurt parfait with poached rhubarb and Kerikeri orange salad, $14


Vegetarian: Not much on main menu but, oddly, there is an entire vegetarian tasting menu, which, in my view, is just encouraging them


Wine: Fine by the glass; flash by the bottle


Noise: Inoffensive jazz


Parking: I hate to add to their swollen coffers, but your best bet is probably what we old Auckland types still call the Farmers car park.

Bottom line: Never a dull moment and the occasional exquisite one

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