DARLING ON DRAKE

Cuisine: Bistro

Address: 27 Drake Street, Auckland CBD

Drinks: Fully licensed

Reservations: Accepted

From the menu: Kūmara flatbread $16; mushroom parfait $21; potato scallops $17; salmon tartare $29; confit hapukū pot $27; chicken leg corndog $23; smoked cabbage $18.

Rating: 16/20

Score: 0-7

Good for him stepping up to bat in the restaurant game and what a big swing he’s taking: a truly massive Victoria Park Market rooftop bar with adjoining restaurant, open until midnight seven days a week. I hope he kept some of that Red Bull.

Early signs are good. We booked a table in the restaurant after reading on the website that the terrace served only a bar menu but when we finished our first round outside and reluctantly began gathering our things to head into the dining room the waiter told us that there was only one menu after all, so we may as well stay here. The news was well received — on a summer evening this is a truly lovely place to sit, with views of blue skies and mature trees, and just enough shading that you can feel the sun but not see it.

Kirby is apparently a cocktail enthusiast and he has a good martini on the list — like the one that got briefly famous at Daphnes a few years ago, it has a touch of sweetness that masks the alcohol burn. In this case that comes from swapping out the vermouth for a sweeter aperitif and adding a little maraschino cherry for interest. There’s also a generous range of non-alcoholic cocktails that were a hit with our sober driver.

With sunburn out of the picture, the one remaining al fresco annoyance was wind, which when we visited was playing a significant role in menu and potato chip redistribution. But the waiters took it in their stride and I didn’t see any significant paper cuts inflicted during this shift.

The food is great, though surprisingly heavy for a restaurant clearly designed to appeal to the fashion- and kilojoule-conscious. We ordered a long list of things and by the end of the meal, it was the simplest and freshest: smoked cabbage (buttered inevitably) that we talked about as we staggered, food-drunk, back to the car (my guest, Jono, had inadvertently scheduled our meal before his weekly cricket game but he texted me later to announce they’d won — the unguent-like film leftover on his fingers from dinner clearly allowing him to play extra tricks with the leather ball).

Individually, things taste very good: Ahi may do a scampi corndog but Darling does it with a chicken leg, the bone in place of the iceblock stick and served simply with horizontal stripes of mustard and tomato sauce. It’s a great take on fried chicken and would be just about the perfect bite with a cold beer. You should also order the spicy kūmara flatbreads with Red Leicestershire cheese melted in the middle. It’s an unusual choice of cheese for a New Zealand restaurant but I guessed it must be a nod to chef Ryan’s home country and LinkedIn confirmed he went to high school in Leicester.

Okay guys, I’m spending way too much time on LinkedIn, this is a cry for help.

It’s always good if you can get some of these charming ingredient details from the waiter as part of your dining experience but this is not that sort of restaurant, at least not yet. The employees are lovely but they’re bar staff, really, and not even particularly knowledgable ones — “I haven’t tried it, so I’m not sure” is not something you should ever hear about a menu where you’re paying a premium.

Perhaps the experience is different when you’re inside and hopefully things are moving in the right direction: the restaurant manager is one of the best in the game and might just require a couple more weeks to finish training the estimated four thousand waiters she will need to staff this place around the clock.

I liked the salmon tartare, served with crisps, and the mushroom parfait that is the star of the menu — silky, smooth and vegetarian-friendly, it’s served with pickled onions and sliced shiitakes, and a light sweet drizzle of something over the top. If duck parfait is the inspiration they should possibly serve it with a little toasted brioche (you have to order bread yourself if you want it), but it’s possible the low-carb movement has changed up the classics for good.

I’ll conclude as I’ve concluded a few times recently: that so far this is better treated as a place for a couple of rounds of outdoor drinks, with some snacks when you all start getting hungry. But the chef is too good for that, and the winter months in Auckland are long. It’ll be good to revisit the dining room after dark, when everybody involved has had a little extra practice.

From dining out editor Jesse Mulligan.