Jesse Mulligan Auckland Restaurant Recommendations: Where To Dine For Great People-Watching; Places That Go The Extra Mile

In this fortnightly series, Viva’s resident dining-out editor shares his sage advice on exactly where to eat. He’s eaten a lot of bad meals so you don’t have to.

Do you have any restaurant-related questions or dining-out conundrums? Jesse is here to help.

Email Jesse at Viva@nzherald.co.nz and tell him what you need. Where and what do you like to eat? How much do you want to spend? If you’re just visiting, where are you staying while you’re in town? Who are you eating with? Does anybody have access issues?

Here are some questions he’s been asked lately and what he told them.

Dear Jesse,

I know you get this question every week, but it’s my birthday soon and I want to have a nice dinner out.

Where can I go that’s not too noisy (my hearing is bad), a central-ish location, good-looking and with some great people-watching? Food is a priority — yummy, please! I couldn’t care less about the drinks.

I want flavour, I want tastes of abroad. I don’t want molecular gastronomy or fussy fare or tiny portions. I love a set menu.

Yours sincerely, Princess Pernickety

Dear Princess,

Yes, go to Cassia. Because they have a brand-new restaurant in Federal St which they’ve put everything into (including the light fittings from the old Cassia) and you owe it to yourself to check it out. Happy Birthday!

But where to go next year? I love the Italian restaurant Bossi, which ticks almost all of your boxes. How is the people-watching? It tends to be fairly businessy but that’s interesting enough in its own right, right?

How about Ebisu? Great Japanese food in a beautiful room and not at all fussy.

Or, if you weren’t hung up on eating anything particularly exotic, go to Soul Bar, which has a new kitchen every chef in Auckland is excited about, and where the people-watching is off the charts. Enjoy!

Hi Jesse,

I love reading your reviews and a few weeks ago was excited to visit a restaurant after you reviewed it.

Tonight we visited another place, which has lovely wheelchair accessibility (again, I mentioned in my reservation that we needed this) but no wheelchair-accessible bathrooms, which is not apparent until it is too late! Appalling.

Please, please, can you note if the restaurants you review are accessible, and if not, perhaps put a little pressure on them to either clearly say that or accommodate their clients with needs?

Thanks! Shelley

Hi Shelley,

Sorry to hear about these experiences and as I’m sure you know, you’re not alone. In fact, on the same day as I got your letter, I received another one from a keen foodie who uses a walker, making a similar point (he also observed that, with people living longer and often recovering from hip or joint surgery, more and more people are affected by mobility issues, not “just” those with a permanent disability).

The issue with an accessibility note in reviews is that there are so many aspects to this concept. A wheelchair user might be happy with (to borrow a list from my other correspondent) “the street situation, parking, entry, space and chairs with arms”, while somebody with low vision might have difficulty with the low lighting and restaurant print; the hard of hearing may have issues with the music or acoustics. None of this is a reason to avoid talking about accessibility issues! But it could easily use up my 800 words each week.

I promise I’ll keep thinking about and writing about it. I’m working on a separate, more substantial piece on dining out for those in wheelchairs in particular, but until then I’d love to hear from you and others about restaurants who do it very well.

Cibo is a favourite of the gentleman with the walker, so if you haven’t been there yet, it also happens to be one of my favourite restaurants in Auckland.

Hi Jesse,

I wanted to share an amazing experience I had recently at Depot. I’d forgotten my glasses and was struggling to read the menu when a helpful waitress appeared at my side carrying two pairs of glasses she’d found in lost property!

Miraculously, one of them worked and I continued with my ordering in a much more comfortable fashion.

Have you ever heard of anything like this? I felt I had to write and tell you.

Christine

Wow, Christine, that will take some beating. Kudos to the waitress and to Al Brown, who you could say has the magic touch, but that would sell him short on the incredible hard work and hours he puts into that restaurant and the people who work there.

Do I have stories of exceptional service? Well, at The French Laundry in California, the chefs agreed to a scheduled break in their tightly choreographed meal plan so that my wife could go into the garden and meet our babysitter to breastfeed. This might not sound like a big deal but it’s a bit like asking a military unit to take a half-hour break mid-invasion — my daughter Hazel, who’s now 12, will never know the number of people she had willing her to drink up that day.

At Nobu in London, I was having a celebration lunch with a colleague who hadn’t yet told us she was pregnant. The waiter (who was in on the secret) poured her flute of Champagne first and then walked around the table filling everybody else’s. Eventually, he made it back round to her where he waited as we clinked our glasses “cheers”, then discreetly took her glass away with him. I found out all this afterwards because none of the rest of us noticed him do it at the time.

Little moments like this can change somebody’s whole meal for the better — I’d love to hear from other readers about some “wow” moments in restaurant service.

Previously Recommended By Jesse

What you’ve asked, what he’s shared.

Where To Eat That’s Actually Fun; Dinner That Isn’t Crowded. One reader is looking for a spot “that shows how good Auckland restaurants can be”.

Where To Eat On A Student Budget; Spots For A Semi-Romantic Date. From a suburban treasure where the food is excellent, to huge (cost-effective) portions.

Where To Go For Marine Cuisine In A Seafood City; Bar Food Worth Its Price. One reader asks, “I can’t face paying city prices for bad bar food. Where shall we go?”