Auckland Restaurant Review: Queens, Auckland’s Newest Rooftop Restaurant, Is A Gobsmackingly Great Space

QUEENS

Cuisine: Bistro

Address: Level 21/1 Queen St, Auckland CBD, Auckland 1010

Drinks: Drinks fully licensed

Reservations: Accepted

From the menu: Bloody mary oyster $16; chicken thigh $32; gildas $19; jumbo prawn skewer $36; fish schnitzel $46; iceberg lettuce wedge $18; pāua croquettes $2

Score: 16/20

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.

Wow. This is a gobsmackingly great space — a space so magnificent that when you step out of the elevator and look around, you immediately start thinking about who you could bring with you next time.

Instead you take the escalator down to street level and wander to your right until you come across a wine shop — a quaint and unexpected retail offering in the heart of Accountant Town. The shop is consciously rustic — prices are written in marker pen on the bottles — and if you keep walking through you’ll eventually find a restaurant manager talking into a headset that isn’t quite up to the job. She’s in a small room with two tables where you’re encouraged to enjoy a glass of wine but when I was here it felt much more like a lift lobby, with half a dozen diners waiting impatiently for their ride to the sky.

I mention all this because when concepts like this work well it’s very impressive. When the system breaks down, though, you end up longing for something a bit more traditional. Hopefully it gets a bit smoother over the next few weeks, and to be fair it went much better on the way out, when I spotted a group who’d just eaten dinner lingering to pick up a bottle for home.

Back up at the 21st floor, when you book you can choose if you want to sit inside or out (they take table numbers very seriously and any change must be reported to and approved by the nice woman on the ground floor). I would check the weather before you commit and dress for the outdoors — they have heaters but I was in a cold zone between two of them and was just lucky they had space to move me back inside. But choose the deck if you can — it’s a rare chance to see views from the Harbour Bridge to Parnell, the height of the restaurant neatly blocking out the red fence on Quay St so all you see is boats, sea and sky.

I sat in a room full of very happy people, me eating swiftly and alone because it was music awards week and something had to give. Regular readers will know I quite enjoy a solo meal (the crucial part is you need to have decided to eat alone, not be doing it out of desperation) and I enjoyed chatting to the waiters about this and that.

Together we chose some menu dishes which were all good individually, but when they started arriving I realised almost everything I’d ordered was deep-fried. I could have seen it coming if I’d really focused but when a snack says “chicken thigh”, and when I’d asked what it was like and they hadn’t mentioned the f word, I was quite surprised that it turned up battered and crunchy (with a honey mustard mayo and pink pickled onions it’d be a great and large snack with beers after work).

Then there were the pāua croquettes which, while tasty enough, were in my view a bit of a waste of that delicate, expensive protein (mixed up in a white sauce then crumbed and fried in oil). Their internal temperature was thermonuclear, and I also had a heat problem getting the prawns off their skewers (one jumbo prawn on each, two for $36, served with a nice nduja butter), which were steel and straight out of the oven so the waiter had warned me not to touch them.

Lots of small complaints so far from me but they didn’t add up to a bad experience overall — more just little things for the kitchen to think about, because I think Queens could be in the awards later in the year. Lots of the food was great — I loved the gildas (various pickled and brined items, stuck on a metal pick), and the snapper schnitzel (though massively rich with two types of butter sauce, one made with shellfish stock), and the oyster bloody mary.

There are plenty of good drinks on offer and the owners have done a great job of hiring staff, who are a lovely upbeat team of locals and working holidaymakers, and make a lot of extra effort to keep the diners happy.

I was there after dark but daytime and, I think, especially sunset will be total magic here. They can seat 200, apparently, with most of that space outside on a deck that stretches north to east. Perfect for lunchtime sun, in other words. Take somebody special and enjoy Auckland’s most exciting new spot.

More restaurant reviews

From dining out editor Jesse Mulligan.

Gochu goes all in on modern Korean flavour bombs, and it’s (still) incredible. The Commercial Bay spot serves power snacks, parmigiana and unmissable charred chicken.

Inner-city dining for a big group in Auckland; where to find great BBQ. Plus, how to scout venues for a major party.

This new seaside restaurant is sparklingly good. The lamb chops, spicy salmon, kingfish ceviche and eggplant on the menu at First Mates Last Laugh.

Newly renovated Farina is the happiest Italian spot in Ponsonby. With an expanded and refreshed interior, Farina is buzzy and beautiful.

The North Shore has a little gem, and it’s an alfresco pasta spot. It is a food truck, with handmade gnocchi and excellent individual tiramisu portions.