Jesse Mulligan’s Auckland Restaurant Review: Westmere’s Ragtag Is A Buzzy, Mexican-inspired Bistro

RAGTAG

Cuisine: Mexican bistro

Contact: 021 409 879

Address: 162 Garnet Rd, Westmere

Reservations: Accepted

Drinks: Fully licensed

Website: Ragtagnz.com

From the menu: Fish tostada $21; prawn tostada $15; tomato salad $22; cabbage duck tacos $28; lamb tortillas $37; cabbage $18.

Rating: 18/20

This is a gem of a restaurant, in a most unexpected location. Until now, an outsider visiting Westmere would have been searching for either sausages, soccer fields or a roadside Christmas tree but now there is another drawcard: stunning, Mexican-inspired food in a cosy, buzzy restaurant.

It’s not customary for my reviewing checklist to include a headcount of young women, but there were so many here that I can’t help but mention it — I felt like I’d stumbled into a pottery retreat. There were a bunch of smartly dressed Millennial-types eating in the main dining room and then more of them started spilling out of the private dining room upstairs, a seemingly endless parade of law grads emerging from the stairwell like clowns from a very small car.

I swear at one point there were 40 people in the room, and 38 of them could plausibly have been named Mia.

I was eating with my mother who was a squeak older than the predominant demographic but who enjoyed herself very much nonetheless. It is that sort of place — warmly welcoming to both nearby homeowners and their daughters — and the waitstaff — possibly also drawn from the pool of local daughters — are well-trained and friendly, if a little hard to hear, from time to time, over the feminal hubbub.

The kitchen crew seem happy too although, unfashionably these days, they’re in a room out the back, meaning it takes some effort to pop your head in and take a look at what they’re up to.

The whole thing is a project of chef Dan Freeman, who I haven’t come across before but who has a pretty healthy-looking CV — My Kitchen Rules, some London experience, a top job at Alma and then a number of successful pop-ups around the city. Now he’s ensconced in an otherwise shabby block of shops in suburban Auckland, turning a vacant cafe space into a beautiful, humming bistro.

Drinks come fast — beer and wine on tap and a short list of excellently beautiful cocktails available to sip on while you look at the menu — margaritas yes, but also a negroni and other non-Mexican options.

There is a dedicated bartender whose busy work creates a focal point for the dining room, my mum’s only complaint being that a bouquet of lilies on the countertop was emitting a fragrance so strong it competed with the food (she went on to allege that lilies are banned from hospitals for this very reason, though I’ve been unable to find evidence of this and didn’t want to trouble Te Whatu Ora with a fact check at a time when they don’t seem to have a lot of free hands).

The food is just wonderful. We were famished so ordered tostadas as soon as we sat down, and they were a big hit: one, a single disk topped with trevally and a spicy peach salsa, and the other, a handful of prawns sandwiched between two toasted tortillas: crunchy and pleasingly juicy thanks to a tomato vinaigrette which spilt over my chin when I bit into it.

Any dish which heavily features cabbage is destined to be overlooked by unadventurous diners, but you must order it here. It’s cooked just to the point of al dente and is loaded up with two flavour bombs: a fragrant XO sauce and kimchi (presumably an older relative of the cooked cabbage, euthanised and fermented some weeks earlier). This dish has disappeared from their current online menu but I don’t know how up-to-date that is — cabbage being a winter vegetable, I’m guessing it won’t be too far away from the rotation.

Though you might be running out of time for the seasonal tomato salad, which was also brilliant. It had autumn stonefruit sliced and nestled in with the tomatoes, along with some indulgent stracciatella cheese and a green chilli butter which gave a huge kick to the fresh ingredients.

Some of this stuff isn’t immediately recognisable as Mexican but that’s intentional — the kitchen is happy to throw in other ingredients when they work.

We ordered an incredible main of lamb which was flavoured with sesame and Szechuan — try putting that one on a map — and it elicited an involuntary “Oh my God” from Mum. Each of the mains (along with the lamb there is fish, and beef, and eggplant) is served with six “duck fat” tortillas (I’m not sure where the duck fat fits in exactly but it works) though you’ll probably end up asking for more.

If this all sounds too much, some mini duck tacos with cherry salsa are incredible too — the formula of full-fat meat, a piquant relish and plenty of spice working beautifully throughout the menu.

I loved it here. Every dish tasted better than the last, and every choice they’d made — from the decor to the lighting to the thoughtfully garnished drinks — made a small, positive difference to our enjoyment of the meal.

Imagine Auckland if there was one of these in every suburb! The chef seems like someone with big dreams and a knack for achieving them — don’t bet against him making that happen.

More Mexican Restaurants

Tacos, quesadillas, a symphony of flavours.

Mt Eden’s Mexican Restaurant De Nada Is Hot. The Mexican restaurant delivers on heat — and uniformly crowd-pleasing tuna nachos.

The Mexican Restaurant That’s Fast Becoming The Talk Of The Town. The sole dessert is stunningly good. And then there is the margarita menu.