Two Fifteen, Mt Eden

Being a Brit recently arrived in Auckland, I occasionally get a craving for a taste of home. Not 'home' as in dodgy pub food and flaccid clingfilmed sandwiches, but 'home' as in genuine, full-flavoured and exciting European food. I mean chorizo that's actually chorizo, risotto that doesn't come in a packet, food cooked with an understanding that butter is a crucial ingredient rather than a curse on mankind, and so on. Don't get me wrong - there's plenty of great food to be had here, but as I'm sure Kiwis in the UK find, local cuisine is fine to an extent, but sometimes you just want something that tastes like it did at home.

So reading in a recent issue of Dish magazine that ex Orbit (SkyCity) sous-chef Jeremy Schmid had opened Two Fifteen on Dominion Road, and that said restaurant focused on 'familiar bistro fare' with a modern twist, I thought I'd give it a go. The menu certainly looks the part, not over-fussy, with classic dishes such as pork, herb & garlic sausage with mashed potato and browned onions and roast chicken with pumpkin & parmesan smash showing what looks like a dedication to getting the basics right, whilst adding a little interest along the way. So we booked for the future father-in-law's 60th birthday, during the week (the main celebration being on the weekend).

Now, whilst I agree that you can't be all things to all people all of the time, I'm normally satisfied with being some things to most people most of the time. Two Fifteen faces a bit of a challenge from the outset, being both a 'bistro' and a 'wine bar' on the sign outside and managing to not quite be either on the inside. I appreciate the concept entirely - the idea that whatever you come in for, be it a full three course thing or just a glass of wine, you'll be treated the same and feel just as comfortable - but it's in the execution that this falls down. Take Fifteen in London for example, which has a similar ethos. Upstairs are the drinkers and snackers. Downstairs are the diners. Neither is made to feel uncomfortable by the others' presence.

At Two Fifteen (see what I did there?), the two clash horribly. Our six diners were seated on a table for eight. The other two places were occupied by two old-school business gentlemen who seemed to have been there for most of the afternoon. I'm as liberal as the next man, and after a few wines have been known to get a bit lairy, but sitting right next to a table of newly-arrived diners these two were mightily out of order. Had they been sitting in an actual bar, with other drinkers, it wouldn't have been a problem. But seated at the same table as six diners who didn't know them from Adam, it was a terrible start to the night. Mentioning this to the waiting staff provided precisely no reaction, so one of our party had to tackle it himself, resulting in a faintly uncomfortable feeling in our corner of the room.

This episode swallowed, we moved on. Bread was unremarkable. I'm a big sourdough fan, and this was standard white, fluffy, dull. The butter was excellent, though - well sourced and served at the perfect temperature. The menu, as I've mentioned, is petite but well thought out. Again, the theory is spot on, but the execution is lacking.

I've been spoilt with pork belly recently, at Black Barn in Hawke's Bay. I've cooked it a lot too. The low temperatures, long cooking time and moisture provided by the meat itself helped with wine and oil all combine to produce something silkily gorgeous, something meltingly tender and deeply, richly flavoured. Serve straight from the oven for maximum effect. Unless you're the chaps at Two Fifteen who take a roast that was overly-garlicked to start with, slice, cool and then heat up on the grill, ensuring a starkly flavoured, dry, dense cut, the complete antithesis of what pork belly should be. I have pondered the logic of this over and over since, and can only assume that there's a stauch vegetarian cooking in there. Accompanying kumara mash was sickly and dense, but that's par for the course with kumara I find.

That said, whoever's behind the pass does know fish, and the cooking thereof, as the pan-fried snapper was as good a piece of fish as I've seen in a restaurant, expertly fried with crisped skin and softly flaking flesh beneath. The herb risotto upon which it rested, however, was pooled on top with melted butter, speaking of either too long under the heat lamps or simply poor technique.

The dessert menu was where Two Fifteen shone. The flourless chocolate cake is absolutely superb, with the accompanying salted caramel and passion fruit mascarpone providing a brilliant counterpoint to the richness of the cake. An excellent parfait was light, delicate, and amusingly scattered with 'baby popcorn', which I still can't quite work out. The one low point came in the presentation of the caramel hazelnut tart, which although delicious, looked for all the world as if it had just been removed from its wrapper.

On the wine front, the list is decent, but not up to scratch for a self-styled 'wine bar'. Mid-market brands abound, prices are on the optimistic side (possibly to compensate for the very reasonably priced food). The service is endearingly inept, 10 points for effort and friendliness, but a little to learn nonetheless. It's no fun watching your beautiful dessert wilt for 10 minutes whilst the final plate is brought to the table, no matter how many apologies you get in the meantime.

So on the whole, what's the verdict? Mixed, I'm afraid. The theory of this place is great, and some of the execution is good too. Service will improve with time, it's early days yet. The desserts are excellent, creative and well-made. But the practice of intermingling casual drinkers with diners, the appalling way that pork was treated, the uninspired, lacklustre wine list and a number of frankly careless errors in the kitchen are more worrying; this speaks of a more deep-seated problem with Two Fifteen, that amid the flashes of greatness, perhaps they're just fundamentally not very good at being either a restaurant or a bar.

With time, I would love to be proved wrong, as Auckland needs more places with this description. They just need to be able deliver on the promise.


Two Fifteen Bistro and Wine Bar
215 Dominion Road
Mt Eden
Auckland
+64 (0) 9 630 6474

http://twofifteen.co.nz