THE BUTCHER BAKER
Cuisine: Bistro
Address: 5 Commercial Rd, Helensville
Reservations: Accepted
Website: Thebutcherbaker.co.nz
Drinks: Fully licensed
From the menu: Bread and butter $13; salt cod croquettes $16; smoked celeriac $16; chickpea socca $22; lamb kibbeh $23; bavette $30; crayfish tortellini $36
Rating: 18/20
Score: 0-7 Steer clear.
There is no chance anybody within 10 kilometres of The Butcher Baker hasn’t already heard about it, tried it, raved to their neighbours about it. It is a restaurant of such quality that if it was anywhere near the city the tables would be full every night — the fact that it is in the middle of (sorry) nowhere only adds to its significance.
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Advertise with NZME.Helensville is a long, long drive from Auckland. I’m ashamed to say that in my head I’d sort of lumped it in with Coatesville, Kumeū, Riverhead — the parts of Auckland a city-type only visits for strawberry picking, assisted by GPS so not necessarily learning much, geographically speaking, along the way. But Helensville makes Kumeū look like Point Chev, or so I Iearned as I drove through forest and farmland one Thursday night, the “minutes to destination” seemingly barely changing as I passed through Middle Earth and crossed the border into Narnia.
The Butcher Baker is a very appealing place to arrive at, eventually. City restaurants mostly don’t get beautiful until you walk through the door but in rural New Zealand one can have things like a courtyard, an entryway and considered outdoor lighting so that as a diner you are in the mood before you even touch the door handle.
It was 8.30pm and almost everybody local had eaten and gone home. We were a party of three and took seats at the chef’s table (technically set up for two couples or a party of four, but there are few rules in an empty restaurant) which runs along one side of an open kitchen, warmed by the heat of the fire used for cooking.
The idea in these seats is that the food prep is part of your evening’s entertainment. I recommend it for couples who eat out together a lot and don’t need the conversational intimacy of a private table, but it’s also perfect for people who don’t know each other so well, taking pressure off the small talk chat. The only time I think I wouldn’t like it is if I was catching up with an old friend and every minute of conversation counted — I did this sort of dinner at another place recently and had to almost shoo the waiter away a couple of times. So, know what you need and book accordingly.
Chef Reginaldo is a charismatic character (you can read some of his story in Lincoln Tan’s recent Viva profile of him), a man who built a big reputation at Odettes and Honeybones then spotted this space in Helensville and seized his moment. He is clever, and imaginative, and also humble — “I try some things, maybe I get some things wrong,” he said to me at one point, but when I visited everything was right.
He speaks quietly, and I had to ask him many times to repeat himself. It was usually possible, thanks to the menu, to keep up with the ingredients he was describing, but sadly his more philosophical digressions will remain a mystery. Still, I enjoyed this meal as much as any I’ve had this year.
As you’d expect from the name, meat is a specialty — Reginaldo cooks it with that open fire, in tribute to the traditional cuisine of his homeland, Brazil. You can order a big 1kg+ cut to share or do what we did and order a smaller piece of bavette. It’s a joy to see him slice this juicy, flavoursome cut in front of you, opening it up and sprinkling flaky salt on to the interior surface of the meat. They serve their steak with tomato salad at Esther and here there’s another fresh idea: cold radicchio, sliced thinly and heaped on the meat, with a creamy eggplant rouille below and a funky-sweet fermented plum glaze on top, presumably one of those Reginaldo experiments that comes off beautifully.
Vegetables are treated with as much respect as the meat and there are dozens of moments in the meal where you say “Ah! Wow! How cool is that?” Like the celeriac — for years treated by chefs as something to be pureed, here it is served like a baked potato — cooked over embers in a salt crust overnight — and is extremely delicious. It’s served with hazelnut butter which is dark and faintly sweet.
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Advertise with NZME.Crayfish tortellini would be delicious enough — served with a soupy bisque and a little tomato for acid — but what I remember most about it was a habanero oil, boldly hot without overpowering the fine seafood, that chilli variety’s distinctive flavour one of life’s great culinary pleasures.
Then there was the chickpea socca, a beautiful vegetarian dish consisting of a circular flatbread spread with white almond “gazpacho” and a delicious topping of closely chopped sprouted broccoli, salsa verde and more scattered nuts.
It’s one of those kitchens where there is always more going on than you realise — every mouthful representing a journey of hundreds of hours.
“What are those for?” I asked, pointing to some fish frames hanging over the fire.
“Fish frames are high in vitamin B,” I’m pretty sure was his answer. “I’m going to keep them until I have enough, then grind them into a flour and use that flour to make crackers which I’ll serve in the restaurant.”
This was just one thing I happened to ask about. What a brilliant chef, in a brilliant place. Is Helensville part of Auckland? If so, you can’t say you’ve eaten at the city’s best restaurants until you’ve eaten here.
From dining out editor Jesse Mulligan.
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At Birkenhead Bistro Moxie, Book Your Table & Then Book Your Beef. The Beef Wellington was a dish of such topographical singularity that I can’t forget it.
Night-Time Dining At Orphans Kitchen Is Back — With A Dish Of The Year. The prince of Ponsonby dining returns, and there’s a dish you absolutely must try.
