Herald Rating: * * 1/2
Address: Cockle Bay, Howick
Phone: (09) 535 8770
Open: Dinner 7 days, lunch Fri-Sun
Cuisine: Traditional Italian
From the menu: Scallops pan-fried in brandy cream sauce, arborio rice $17.50;
Chicken breast with camembert, mango slices, chardonnay and cream $27.50;
Cassata (fruit, cherries, nuts soaked in rum and marsala, ice cream) $10.50
Vegetarian: Dishes on menu
Wine: Short Italian-NZ list Sole survivor
KEY POINTS:
The 70s, the 80s, the decades have come and gone. In tiny, sandy, genteel Cockle Bay, it still feels like the 60s.
The last house on the beach, under the pohutukawa, near the scout hall, looks like the original homestead.
It's a confidence trick. The villa restaurant is historic, but its history doesn't belong here. Was a post office, up in Cook St, till it upped stamps and moved here 35 years ago. The early 70s. I was almost right.
Windross House has been through several owners, images, fortunes. For the past three years Billy and Juliana Pica have been the hosts. They arrived in Aotearoa 12 years ago with a restaurant background and respect for Italian cuisine in their luggage.
Billy worked for the Portofino chain in Parnell, then they struck out for themselves, crossing the road to buy Portobello and turn it into Una Lira. Like the lira, now defunct.
Locals like Windross - search public-opinion sites and stand back for the gushes - which is always good business.
The food is Italian even if the menu messes with two languages: thanks, chef, but I'll pass on the "fegatini di polio" today, and most foccacia of my acquaintance come with one 'c' and then two.
Spaghetti bolognese, fettucine alfredo, lasagne verde, bistecca pepe ... hear a dinner-suited orchestra tuning up O Sole Mio?
It's an entertaining read, with a number of the candidates telling us they're "like Mamma used to make". So the recipes might have been around since the 60s too.
Back to the bread. We were expecting hard, crusty and flat. It was soft, flabby and risen.
For mature times' sake, Jude called for avocado shrimp cocktail, which was in fact a salad, of leaves, watery crustacea and a violent pink sauce. We reminisced about Thousand Island Dressing. "Is that one of the things Mamma used to make?" I asked. "No," she said, "it's one of those things Mamma used to buy."
"Insalata della casa" translates as "the house salad". Homemade, the menu-writers like using that. These leaves, fetta and large black olives looked - and tasted - as if they'd been assembled at home, not long after a grand tour of Foodtown.
I ordered chicken risotto as the best test of an Italian restaurant. This was an unusual variation on the theme, once not seen in any of the standard references, Lorenza De'Medici or Antonio Carluccio - or even Ainsley Haricot. It had arborio, it had grilled chicken strips, it had unconventional additions of carrot, beans, zucchini and a vivid tomato sauce. Presumably chef was following the maxim that Italian food should reflect the flag: red, white and green. Several Italian flags.
Jude grinned at my discomfort and did not offer to share: entirely forgivable from one who was clever in ordering simply pan-grilled orange roughy with conventionally cooked vegetables, and knows that simply's the best. Double shots of coffee to finish. Brandy snaps. Very good they were, with sweet fruity sauce on the side. But then we've adored brandy snaps since we were kids. In the 60s.
