Auckland Restaurant Review: Sidart’s Casual Italian Pivot Isn’t So Casual

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By Jesse Mulligan

Tuesday Oct. 08, 2024

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The 'incredible' snacks on the menu at Sidart in Ponsonby. Photo / Babiche Martens

SIDART

Cuisine: Bistro

Address: 283 Ponsonby Rd, Ponsonby, Auckland

Phone: (09) 360 2122

From the menu: Five courses $150pp

Drinks: Fully licensed

Rating: 17/20

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.

When

It’s not that I didn’t understand the financial pressures. Every restaurateur is telling me the same thing: that it is hard to get people to come out, and the ones who do won’t spend like they used to. At a certain point you’re faced with a choice: adapt or die (to put it another way: serve tiramisu or die).

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I needn’t have worried. Sidart has barely changed. The white tablecloths are gone, but I looked really hard and found little sign of the “simplicity, warmth and communal spirit” the recent announcement promised. The tasting menu, surely the best way to enjoy a chef’s vision, features dishes that are complex, playful and definitely not for sharing — all the stuff we loved about Sidart in the first place.

The white tablecloths of the former Sidart are gone, but Jesse can find little sign of the “simplicity, warmth and communal spirit” the recent announcement promised. Photo / Babiche Martens

I think most of us read “casual” as “cheaper”, but I’m afraid that isn’t the case here. Our menu cost $150 a head — I can’t think of many places where you drop $300 before even picking up the wine list — and took just 59 minutes from start to finish (it’s possible the chef, a dad, was moving things along because I was eating with my young daughter, but this was never mentioned).

The wait staff are strong, though perhaps a slight step down from the long line of waiters and sommeliers that made this restaurant famous. Nobody opens the sliding door for you anymore, we were accidentally given a food menu instead of a wine list and they were a little slow to offer drinks. They were nice, with some pretty good training, but not threatening to win any service awards this year.

Queensland Wagyu with black garlic puree. Photo / Babiche Martens

The food, though, is out-of-control good. It begins with three incredible “snacks” — a savoury nduja-flavoured madeleine with gorgonzola cream and tomato oil, the world’s fanciest lasagne toppa and a macaron, also savoury and also delicious: with mozzarella-basil cream and tomato water meringue, it is Sidart’s tribute to a Caprese salad (my only problem was the macaron’s dimensions: about 7cm from top to bottom while the average human mouth, when open, gets to only 5.5cm).

Next came crudo — Italian in theory, though every restaurant in town does a version. This is a pretty precise one — I saw a chef carefully lifting off a ring mould to create a colourful circle of fish (tarakihi, unusually, but it worked) cured in salt and mandarin oil and served up with other bright flavours like mandarin granita and tartare sauce.

The upmarket dining room has stunning views of Auckland's city centre. Photo / Babiche Martens

The ravioli — the night’s most Italian dish — was a beautiful construction, filled with confit duck meat, sweetened with date, textured with walnut and topped with a lovely disc of compressed butternut pumpkin. A grana padano foam supplied the elusive “fifth taste”.

A piece of Queensland wagyu was sliced in a cross-section and blood-red rare. The waitress described it as “tender as butter”, but to be honest we both had trouble cutting off pieces and left the odd sinewy bit on the plate. No biggie — meat should have some chew — and the flavour was incredible, with black garlic puree if you wanted even more for your mouthful.

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Charred courgettes, stracciatella, burnt onion ash, green chili puree. Photo / Babiche Martens

One mildly critical observation is that the menu wasn’t exactly bursting with spring. We visited in late September — when even Woolworths was selling asparagus — but aside from a wonderful courgette dish there wasn’t much green on the plate. Pumpkin, walnut, celeriac, leek — this stuff is all pretty wintry. There were those flavours of basil and tomato in one dish — but no sign of the raw ingredients that provided them.

Looking over the website for some info I see it has now — four weeks after the relaunch — removed the word “casual” from its description of what Sidart is, so maybe that was always a bone of contention. With the press release now out of date, what can you expect from the new Sidart? One of Auckland’s best chefs, creating very elevated bistro food in an upmarket dining room with stunning views of the city. A chipper team of staff serving great drinks to happy customers. And a final bill more suited to someone with a term deposit than a mortgage.