SPRING
Cuisine: Bistro
Address: Shop 1/F/415, Remuera Rd, Remuera
Reservations: Accepted
Website: Springbistro.com
Drinks: Fully licensed
From the menu: Flat bread $17; tomato salad $28; prawn salad $28; fish crudo $28; sirloin $44; salmon $41
Rating: 14/20
Score: 0-7 Steer clear. 8-12 Disappointing, give it a miss. 13-15
After paying our bill at Spring, in the fantastically new 1050 development off Remuera Rd, my friend Paddy and I did what I suppose you are meant to do and ambled through the rest of the precinct, a pleasant and not unromantic way to spend a few extra minutes together after dinner.
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Advertise with NZME.We smiled through the windows at happy diners sharing a feast at Thai Village, gasped at the Japanese delights being prepared at Waku Waku, then waved to a long table of birthday revellers at Spiga, their happy faces casting an almost visible glow into the laneway.
It was at this point Paddy put his hand on my shoulder, turned to me and said: “I wish we’d eaten at one of these restaurants.”
I did too. It’s not that Spring is bad, particularly, just that in its current form there is no real reason to go. The food is well-cooked, the staff are green but lovely, and the room still has that new car smell. But eating there is no fun.
It’s an all-day restaurant and I think it’ll work very well as a cafe — somewhere bright and energising to eat breakfast or lunch. These meals are less demanding on the staff, who hadn’t tried any of the dinner dishes so weren’t able to offer any opinion on their relative merits (they’ve only been open a month and it’s possible our server had been there much less than that — but if somebody about to drop $300 on dinner asks “Any favourites?”, there needs to be someone in the building who can step forward and say “The lamb is quite nice”).
Interestingly, there were many more floor staff than required on the night we were there — I’d guess about one per table. When we arrived they were all gathered around the pass like schoolboys watching a particularly good TikTok, but on closer inspection they were all in deep discussion with the chef, who seemed cross about something.
The sheer numbers meant we never had to wait for anything, in fact, we would often have one woman taking our order while another senior bloke stood just within earshot — though given he never stepped in to help with the various questions we were asking, I think he must have just been “hanging”.
The menu is short and uncomplicated. It’s mostly one dish per person — entrees and mains — with a selection of flatbreads to begin. The black garlic and mozzarella version is featured heavily on Spring’s Instagram so I ordered one of those but it was disappointing: not enough salt in the bread dough, not enough flavour from the few little flecks of garlic and I’m not sure mozz is meant to be melted down this much — it’s more about fresh texture than cheesy flavour, meaning the flatbread comes off like a very underpowered cheese on toast.
The entrees are fairly strong — a good prawn salad with nam jim slaw, though the plate was cold so the hot seafood was room temperature within seconds.
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Advertise with NZME.We liked the crudo and though we never found out what the fish was (a little pink for snapper, I think it must have been trevally) it tasted fresh and good — a touch unseasoned but that’s common to raw fish served almost everywhere, and went well with what I’m going to call a deconstructed salsa verde — fennel, basil leaves and chopped green olives.
Paddy ordered the salmon for his main and, for I think the first time ever, the server asked how he’d like it done. There were a few seconds of confusion as he tried to work out what sort of answer she was looking for but they eventually settled on medium-rare — it’s possible the chef had a bad experience with somebody complaining about their fillet not being cooked through, and honestly I don’t think it hurts to ask.
He did a great job of cooking it as requested, and when cut through was just a touch pinker in the middle than on the outside, which was nicely scorched by the oven, too. It came with little salsa of various sharp ingredients which Paddy was happy with, though I wasn’t quite so excited.
For one, they’d promised capers and I could only see two of them (this can’t have been a budgeting move, because there were plenty of pine nuts) but there were lots of currants — dried fruit not an impossible match with oily fish but not in the top 10 things I’d put with it.
My sirloin was nicely cooked and niftily sliced before it got to me, an American trick I’m quite keen on.
And dessert was probably the best course — a classic pavlova for Paddy and for me a really good friand (a sort of cakey muffin) baked with fruit, and a jug of cream on the side.
Maybe Spring will be better by spring. For now it’s a solid option for lunch with signs of promise for dinner. A few softer furnishings, some music, a bit more engagement between staff and food — it shouldn’t take much to turn this into a well-loved local.
