Restaurant Review: Squisito Makes Pizzas That Herne Bay Understands

SQUISITO

Cuisine: Italian

Address: 170A Jervois Rd, Herne Bay

Phone: (09) 360 0282

Website: Squisito.co.nz

Drinks: Fully licensed

Reservations: Accepted

From the menu: Calamari $23; crudo $24; oysters $6ea; venison pappardelle $32; saltimbocca di pollo $35; diavola pizza $29.50; rolada di mozzarella $29

Rating: 15/20

I was meant to be eating at a city restaurant, but we got all the way to their front door and found a sign saying they were closed.

“I’m sorry, the whole kitchen has Covid,” said an apologetic manager, who for some reason had come in anyway.

“Oh, no problem!” I said, stepping back 12 paces or so and dodging her word-breaths like they were bullets.

It was late December in Auckland, it felt like everybody I knew was infected or recently recovered, and with a big family Christmas on the way I was walking through life like Neo in The Matrix, almost believing I could avoid the thing through careful ducking and weaving.

After some discussion my buddy and I repaired to Herne Bay, where I’d caught wind there was a new wine bar, Squisito, doing takeout pizza for the locals. Even better, they had outdoor tables, which were catching a bit of wind themselves but were pleasant enough thanks to outdoor heating and some attentive staff.

Everybody seemed very pleased with life and the front-of-house manager (and co-owner) was working particularly hard to get us excited about the menu. Could I order a bottle of the vouvray, I wondered? He considered this for a moment.

“Sure. Let me just chill it down.”

“Oh, if it’s not cold we’ll take the pinot grigio,” I said.

“All good! The pinot grigio will be perfect.”

“The vouvray has the body of a chardonnay,” he said, “but also a little crispness. It would have been wonderful.”

It sure sounded great. But the grigio was good too and was a steal — $50 for a bottle and one of a number of wines priced much more reasonably than you’d expect for a corner wine bar in Auckland’s richest suburb.

All the wine is on display, stacked up on shelves around the room, which makes choosing something fun, and is a nice point of difference — there isn’t even a wine list, so you really are forced to get up and have a look around (still cautious of airborne pathogens, I held my breath and dived into the room, passing curiously by seated diners as though I was a snorkeller and they were fish).

Hungry if not overly excited by a pretty standard New Zealand-Italian menu, we started with a plate of Matuku oysters, the manager having talked about them with wide eyes as if they were the size of dinner plates.

In fact they looked about normal size to me but tasted good with a mignonette (it arrived without a spoon so we had to tip it directly on to the oysters from the bowl).

After that (although we were having a very nice time) the food was less delicious than I wanted it to be. Wide strips of calamari had a synthetic texture and though dusted in polenta were underseasoned — it made you long for salt and pepper squid.

The Italian word saltimbocca means “to jump in the mouth”, a reference to the exciting flavour of this dish, traditionally made with marinated veal wrapped in prosciutto. But here at Squisito it’s not so jumpy — the baked chicken thigh in a wet tomato and olive sauce tastes precisely how you imagine it does, with a little pile of prosciutto and some big basil leaves not quite enough to make it interesting.

The pappardelle was a little underflavoured too. Good on them for putting venison on the menu, but the cubes of meat didn’t quite match the topography of the pasta (usually but not always the consistency of the sauce should match the shape of the starch — thin with spaghetti and chunky with penne, for example) and a colourful menu description (“chianti and blueberry”) read better than it tasted.

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So stick with the pizzas, which are under $30 and go well with the wine. The wood-fired oven was apparently a nightmare to get consented (it doesn’t pay to be the first business in the area to try something new, according to the owners — Herne Bay’s second pizzeria will have a much easier time of it) so it’s good the locals are keeping the chef so busy.

The business partner of our chatty restaurant manager at one point emerged from the kitchen, looking a little delirious from the busy shift.

“I’m Tony!” he announced.

“Hi Tony, I’m Jesse!” I replied.

He looked at me for a second.

“Jesus?”

No, not Jesus.

They look like they have some fun, these two, and I think they’ll do well at their core business — making pizza for their cash-rich, time-poor neighbours. If the food settles in and the owners maintain their excellent spirits, Squisito might even become a local classic.