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Christchurch
Reviewed by Diana
Other Christchurch Restaurants

Service:
Table service was excellent – friendly, unobtrusive, efficient and pleasant. Staff were tidy, relaxed, and professional.

Presentation:
Food presented with considerable style and restraint. No annoying ‘towers’ of food

Wine List:
Impressive selection of mainly NZ wines, including a wide range available by the glass. Surprisingly, only one of the dessert wines was available by the glass. You can also BYO here – as there is the usual high-end restaurant mark-up on wines. As it was a special occasion, we took our own terrific bottle of bubbles and cheerfully paid the $9 corkage.

Value for Money:
The crisp fish wontons were a highlight. The non-seafood option, the fillet steak, was perfectly tender and delicious. The crayfish was sublime, served very simply with herb butter, green salad and shoestring fries. The salad – and to be fair it’s hard to check every skerrick of those tiny mini leaves and it only takes one little stem to be off – had a couple of very nasty-tasting bits which put me off completely. I didn’t feel the raspberry sorbet was an appropriate match for the crème brulee, which although velvety had an unfortunate “fridgey” edge. The chocolate pudding was deceptively light, rich, and unctuous.

Ambience:
décor chic and minimalist. A relief they’ve taken the film off the Peterborough St windows, which made it somewhat dungeonish for my liking previously. Although not large, the two dining areas are well laid out and spacious. Great to find sympathetic music that you could enjoy while still holding a normal conversation.

The feel good factor:
A good night out after a rather average start – despite 4 staff buzzing around and the restaurant being far from full at that hour, 3 tablesful of customers were left standing at the doorway waiting for service.