Auckland Restaurant Review: Ada’s Thoughtful Bistro Food Is ‘Just Brilliant’

ADA

Cuisine: Bistro

Phone: 0210 909 0101

Address: The Convent Hotel, 454 Great North Rd, Grey Lynn

Drinks: Fully licensed

Reservations: Accepted

From the menu: Tuna crudo $30; asparagus gribiche $25; triple cooked potatoes $18; campanelle $32; red venison $45; rice pudding $18

Score: 18/20

Score: 0-7 Steer clear. 8-12 Disappointing, give it a miss. 13-15 Good, give it a go. 16-18 Great, plan a visit. 19-20 Outstanding, don’t delay.

Picking up Kia’s apron at Ada is Alfie Ingham, who is fairly hot stuff himself. I never quite connected with his food at Hugo’s Bistro (to be fair, the last time I ate there was with a fairly hardcore vegan - the equivalent of taking a cat to a swimming competition), but he is undeniably popular - fans have followed him through various pop-ups and on to Daphnes in Ponsonby, and will no doubt be stoked that he has a new permanent home in the incredible Convent Hotel.

Until now eating at Ada has sometimes felt chaotic. The service and the kitchen never quite seemed to have peaked at the same time, so it’s been a difficult restaurant to endorse unambiguously. But I think its moment has arrived. Our meal here was one of the best I’ve had for ages, and Alfie’s food is just brilliant.

“Changing the menu two weeks before Christmas, not ideal”, he said, laughing, when I ducked my head through the pass to say hi. They had been busy right through December including being full for lunches - quite a feat for an indoor restaurant during a recession - but if the waitstaff were feeling the pressure of having to learn a full new set of dishes they weren’t showing it. Everyone was fast and friendly and more than happy to chat about this ingredient or that.

The kitchen offers a “feed me” menu for $89 and it is well worth doing. Around half the price of some other tasting menus, it will leave you full and extremely happy. And there is no sense that they’re holding back on the best stuff - the menu includes a lamb cutlet, a New Zealand classic which has now become too expensive to serve as a rack in most Auckland restaurants. Here Alfie offers them individually (the same way some dairies in Hamilton used to sell me single cigarettes, if I asked when nobody else was in the shop) and dials up the indulgence by cooking the cutlet in the deep fryer (why not?) and serving it with a lovely fresh mint salsa.

Ada has a decent herb garden, and you can sense it right through the menu. I was once told that you can use European basil in Asian cooking but you can’t use Asian basil in European cooking. Alfie tests that theory here and the extra aniseed from the Vietnamese stuff works pretty well with his tuna crudo, though it was a little stranger in the campanelle, a luscious pasta dish almost like a thin minestrone, I think with a little butter stirred through for richness.

Late-season asparagus was incredibly good - one of those dishes that shows how much better everybody else could be doing it. It arrived tender, tasty and charred with a really full-bodied gribiche (boiled egg yolk and assorted deliciousness), the extra body in the sauce working so much more effectively than some of the thin dressings you find elsewhere.

What a lovely place to sit, among other casual, happy diners on group tables in one of Auckland’s great rooms. Potted plants - trees, really - stretch right up to the arched ceilings while the last of the day glows through windows on the southern wall.

This is still bistro food and if, like me, you sometimes find it hard to get excited about that word I recommend a visit to Ada, where the chef and his busy kitchen really fly the flag for this sort of cooking: big flavours, plenty of butter but with individual touches of care and thoughtfulness that make this menu distinct among its Auckland contemporaries.

We finished with a rice pudding. How could you, once seeing that dish on offer, not order it? Alfie’s version is everything you love about this classic and while my mum’s version served with Doris plums out of a can takes some beating, even she might be forced to admit that sliced strawberries work even better. As with so many ingredients featured at Ada, the berry donates all its best characteristics to the dish. It’s sweet but not cloying, indulgent but still light - a perfect fresh contrast to a pudding designed for pure comfort.

This is a chef who knows how to make the most of his produce, at home in a restaurant perfectly deserving of his talents.

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