Auckland Restaurant Review: St. Marg’s Is One Of The Best Openings Of 2024

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By Jesse Mulligan

Tuesday Oct. 22, 2024

Viva

St Marg's is one of the best new openings of the year, on an iconic Karangahape Rd corner. Photo / Babiche Martens

ST. MARG’S

Cuisine: Bistro

Address: 469 Karangahape Rd, Auckland

Contact: Stmargskrd.co.nz

Drinks: Fully licensed

Reservations: Accepted

From the menu: Oysters $6ea, gratin $17; venison pie $34; carbonara $24

Rating: 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

I’ve been listing the contact numbers of restaurants in this column for years but I might stop because it’s become rare for anyone to answer your call [ed’s note – website included]. The millennial project is complete: everybody has a phone but nobody wants to talk on it.

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This week I texted and rang St. Marg’s to tell them I was running very late (long story, not worth it), but again couldn’t get a response. So I had to ghost my 6.30pm booking and turn up instead at 8pm, feeling flustered and embarrassed – feelings that were compounded when I mistakenly entered through the wrong door and had to climb over a large potted plant and then walk past every guest in the room to reach the restaurant’s proper entry point. When I finally got there I stopped and did a humiliating 180-degree turn in order to look like somebody who’d arrived the normal way. People ask if I feel any shame dining alone but on balance I think this would all have been worse if I’d had a friend or family member there to witness it.

Everything feels easy at St Marg's. Photo / Babiche Martens

Luckily, the staff here are warm and lovely and made me feel right at home. Some of them are just spring chickens but there’s a good level of training (the restaurant has strong connections to Ada, and Queenie’s), as well as a very effective-looking operations manager who walks between the kitchen and the dining room, troubleshooting as she goes. Occasionally you’ll see a quick mini-conference between waiters as they try to unpick a thorny problem or cater to a particular guest, but mostly they are hurrying busily and happily around the room, taking more steps in one evening than most office workers would get in a week (I bought a Fitbit and now I’m cursed to think about this stuff).

St Marg’s has a broadly appealing menu with the usual suspects (tartare, crudo), some unexpected delights and a nice list of pasta dishes.

“Eventually all Auckland restaurants will be serving pizza, burgers and pasta,” complained one owner to me recently. I take their point. Menus increasingly offer inexpensive, craveable eats at the expense of more ambitious dishes. But as Aucklanders, surely we want to live in a city that offers both? Every dollar spent is a vote.

St. Marg's oysters, venison pie and carbonara. Photo / Babiche Martens

The venison pie at St. Marg’s has a foot in both camps. The beefy-brown suet pastry is the sort of comfort indulgence that is hard to resist, but there are some innovations in this dish too – most notably a cross-section of thigh bone placed end-up in the middle of the pie so that the marrow – beloved by chefs worldwide – roasts with the rest of the dish. It’s a neat visual trick but I was even more excited by the cranberries – sticky and sweet, slathered over the top of the pastry crust to flavour every mouthful. Inside, the chunks of venison needed a little biting (nothing wrong with that, we have teeth) and were a lovely treat, on a cold night, cooked in hot gravy.

I just loved the gratin – served at the table in the cast iron skillet it was cooked in. It had layers of thinly sliced potato, taleggio and leek with kale – surely a use for this polarising leafy green we can all agree on. The top layer of breadcrumbs and cheese was baked to a crust and delightful to smash through into the good stuff beneath. Order one of these for your table, please.

The oysters at St Marg's, served with a mignonette of cucumber, gin and white balsamic, are among some of the best Jesse Mulligan has ever eaten. Photo / Babiche Martens

The pasta – handmade and superbly cooked – was only lightly sauced. Carbonara, with a wider ribbon than you might expect, was made traditionally (without cream) and with just a few fragments of guanciale and coated in egg yolk, barely detectable. I love a dish that is unashamedly simple and I’d be surprised if you can stop eating it.

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And I almost forgot to tell you about some of the best oysters I’ve ever eaten. They are freshly shucked with no detected fragments of shell (that’s expected of course but surprisingly rare). I ate two of them then ordered two more while trying to work out what made them so special: something about the savoury crunch of fried shallot I think, that contrasted with and emphasised the sweet purity of the oyster. The mignonette was made with cucumber, gin and white balsamic which was interesting too and they’re delivered on a bed of ice cubes so big it feels like an act of largesse.

The space has a mix of individual and communal tables. Photo / Babiche Martens

It’s a very appealing room on an iconic Karangahape Rd corner, beautifully lit with plenty of glass, greenery, and thoughtful decorative touches. One wall features a wooden honour board from a long-gone club, while the toilets are wallpapered with a cool set of 1970s rock posters. Eating dinner cheek to cheek with a stranger might sound like hell to you but two of the tables are communal and they work pretty well – you don’t feel obliged to interact but it’s there if you want it.

Everything feels easy here, the food is great and the staff are good fun. It’s one of the best openings of 2024 and I hope their busy first weeks continue as word spreads around the city.