Out to lunch on Waiheke time

The degustation dinner at Matiatia Olive Estate on Waiheke Island.

Auckland disappeared just after the entrees were served, which was perfect. We decided not to move until the city came back again, which could have been days, judging from the cranky grey clouds swirling across the gulf in front of where we sat at a windowside table on Waiheke Island.

We might just have to stay overnight, we mused, and continued to drink red wine, nibble on smoked salmon and talk nonsense.

Unfortunately, it took only an hour or so for the Sky Tower to pierce the cumulus and rematerialise on the horizon as a breeze cleared the clouds out to sea.

From Waiheke's position in the harbour, Auckland looks like a movie prop, the kind of faraway glittering city which Darth Vader might pulverise with a deadly intergalactic photon beam from the Death Star if he was having a bad morning.

Okay, so it looks like that at night, and when the viewer has possibly drunk more than a sensible number of glasses of local red wine.

On two visits to Waiheke in the past few weeks, the island has been in great form.

Winter is apparently the low season, but the island is reliably two or three degrees warmer than Auckland, despite being only 35 minutes away by ferry.

That temperature thing is not a scientific fact, by the way.

It just feels warmer on Waiheke, especially when snuggled up in a warm car driving through the green hills, or crunching over the shelly sands of Onetangi Beach, or tucking into the fifth course of a degustation lunch while a local singer croons jazz classics in the background.

Our first trip was at the invitation of a group of entrepreneurial locals who have started a new Sunday afternoon tradition - six-course lunches prepared by a Waiheke chef newly home from France.

The venue is Matiatia Olive Estate, a guesthouse and function venue which sits amid the olive groves high above the ferry wharf.

Owner Briar Ross, with her friends Janet McKay and Lindsay Spilman of Obsidian Vineyard and chef Sarah La Touche, came up with the lunch idea and called it Dimanche Dejeneur Degustation.

So far they've held three sold-out lunches, and more are planned.

The idea is simple. At a long white-clothed table in the estate's airy central room, La Touche serves course after delicious course, while Spilman pours the wine and talks about its virtues.

Twelve foodies eat and drink to the sounds of jazz standards performed live by Ross and other local musicians.

On our visit, the lunch began with bread and Matiatia's own olive oil, followed by a dainty goat's cheese tart. As each course arrived, so did a new glass of Obsidian wine.

The most memorable (perhaps because it came first) was Weeping Sands Rose 2005, a pale pink nectar made of merlot grapes. The 2004 version sold out, and it's easy to see why. The name reflects the owners' interest in Maori culture - "weeping sands" is the literal translation of Onetangi, the corner of Waiheke where the winery is situated.

Why were the sands weeping, someone asks across the table. The suggestions become progressively less plausible ... perhaps there was a famous funeral there, perhaps a battle, perhaps they ran out of rose.

Next course was brandade of smoked fish, a sweetly tasty rough terrine served with more bread. Then came the main course, roasted pork with apples and gingery carrots, which smelled and looked so sensational that we summoned all our stoicism to ignore bulging bellies and tuck in.

French cheeses and creme au chocolat du diable followed, with pauses to digest the music.

Ross, a pixieish straight-talking blonde with the voice of Ella Fitzgerald, sold up her Auckland life a few years ago and moved to Waiheke after falling in love with the place on casual weekend visits.

She bought a private home on the Matiatia peninsula and, to keep her in the style to which she wanted to become accustomed, she turned it into a venue and relaxed four-room bed and breakfast.

Ross, a long-time cabaret singer, wants to encourage Waiheke's music scene and has a dream of combining aural and oral pleasures.

"Food is great with music because it keeps folk in one place while I sing at them," she says.

"Waiheke has a long jazz history, with the jazz festival every Easter, [but] I also think it's really important to hear live music, as I was lucky enough to do in my childhood."

Ross is hoping to start Friday evening jazz nights - a way to welcome tourists off the ferry and help them forget suit-and-tieness in preparation for a weekend away from town.

She's scoping venues in the tiny island township of Oneroa where she can create a "cellar-door" atmosphere, with outdoor tables, local wines, nibbles and jazz.

The next trip to Waiheke was a family visit to introduce the island to another Australian, this time my mum, visiting from Sydney.

After chugging over the cloudy harbour on the ferry - which impressed the grown-up ladies in our group by not ruffling a single hairdo, despite the fact we were sitting on the back deck - we hired a car and zoomed straight up to Te Whau vineyard.

The winery, one of Waiheke's most famous, perches on top of another island peninsula and offers a great long-distance view of the city. Until it disappeared, that is.

By that stage, we were slightly distracted. Te Whau's house-smoked salmon is very, very good. So good that it prompted someone at our table (who may or may not be the author of this story) to make a complete piglet of herself by eating not only her own salmon, but everybody else's as well - even reaching across the table to snatch a bowlful from under the poised knife of her boyfriend's father, for whom she really should have been displaying her best table manners.

Served in cool, delicate flakes, Te Whau's salmon is the colour of the sweetest apricots and is smoked over manuka wood and the shavings from oak barrels.

The five of us had ordered just two serves of it ($11 each) to share while we waited for our main courses, and it came accompanied by a basket of assorted grainy and white bread, which was good, because it provided something for the other four to eat while Miss Piggy took care of the salmon.

The rest of the meal progressed in much the same fashion, before we wedged ourselves and our tummies back into the car and drove down to Onetangi beach to have a stroll on the weeping sands.

Nobody had the energy to actually unbuckle themselves and get out, so we admired the view from our seats and headed back to the ferry terminal for another trip across the harbour.

Auckland was there all along, and somehow the city bustle seemed much nicer after a weekend among the vines. Good thing Darth Vader is just an actor in a big black dress.

* Claire Harvey and a friend stayed one night on Waiheke and attended a degustation lunch as the guests of Matiatia Olive Estate.

Getting there

Fullers adult return ticket from downtown Auckland to Waiheke Island is $26. See our website link below or ph (09) 367 9119 for timetable information.

Accommodation

Matiatia Olive Estate offers a minimum two night stay from $250 to $300 per couple, per night. Also available for weddings, conferences. 10 Alan Murray Lane, Matiatia Harbour, Waiheke Island, ph 09 372 4272.

Food and wine

Dimanche Dejeuner Degustation is $75 per person. Contact Janet MacKay on 027 240 1564.

Obsidian Vineyard is at Te Makiri Road, Onetangi, Waiheke Island. Weeping Sands Rose 2005 is available by mail order through the website link below or ph (09) 372 6100.

Te Whau Vineyard is at 218 Te Whau Drive, Oneroa, Waiheke Island. Ph (09) 372 7191. Lunch for five, including two shared entrees, five main courses, four desserts, coffee and one bottle of wine is approximately $325.

Getting around

Waiheke Auto Rentals provides a five-seat manual sedan for $50 per day plus 60 cents per kilometre. The office is in the Matiatia Wharf building, Waiheke Island. Ph (09) 372 8998.