Auckland restaurant review: Kim Knight eyes the menu at Gemmayze Street, St Kevin's Arcade

Chicken shish from the menu at the recently reopened Gemmayze Street restaurant in St Kevin's Arcade. Photo/Sylvie Whinray

A Karangahape Rd favourite has reopened and restaurant critic Kim Knight recommends ordering everything.

Is there a food more disappointing than falafel?

So promising on the page and so dispiriting on the plate. What happens to turn those small, fried patties into dry, crumbly disasters? I don't know but I would pay over and over again for the Gemmayze Street version because it is a joy, a triumph, the falafel of my dreams.

White sesame seeds fleck its very dark exterior. A sludgy green chilli sauce has a sweet-sour lipsmack - something elusive, a little like tamarind? The falafel shatters and there is no middle ground, it is exactly equal parts crunchy and soft. Auckland, you have been doing falafel wrong. Auckland, the only falafel you need ever eat again is at Gemmayze Street.

Chef and owner Samir Allen describes his restaurant as a disruptor: "What was that? Was it Lebanese? Was it New Zealand? Was it both?"

It's 130-years since the Lebanese side of his family came to Dunedin and lived in the hellhole famously dubbed "the devil's half-acre". Watch the video on the restaurant's website to better understand Allen's food journey, that begins with Middle Eastern home cooking and moves through classical French chef training, before the emergence of this Karangahape Rd restaurant that is so much more than the sum of those parts.

Gemmayze St restaurant inside St Kevin's Arcade on Karangahape Rd. Photo/Sylvie Whinray

Gemmayze Street has real heart. Its people really care. I hadn't realised it was reopening night (newly renovated with an expanded dining area) when I booked. Our waitperson was, he admitted, nervous. "I just want it to go well." And it did. It really did.

James ordered the labneh ($10) and I thought, "How do I review strained yoghurt?" The answer, of course, is superlatively. Lemony-creamy perfectly smooth scoopable cheese; so good we asked for another round of fresh-baked pide.

I was concerned, too, when Adrianne asked for the chicken shish ($17). Poultry on a skewer, right? Again, it was the balance that was so outstanding. Flavours and textures bumped and blurred, a book of short stories with a common narrative theme: Delicious. The chicken had a sweet, caramelised edge and it came with a bowl of currant-and-nut studded rice pilaf so comforting I would have liked to have taken a little bowl of it home to pop under my pillow and eat again at breakfast. Add pickled cabbage, sharp yoghurt and an insanely reasonable $17 price tag and this is my dish of the year to date.

Gemmayze Street is a room within a room and we sat "inside", close to the kitchen with its brigade of chefs whose tan aprons complement the beaten brass front of the bar area and the buttery-earthern-ochre tone of the dining room. Think hot coals and warm flavours; hummus, pomegranate molasses and paprika, and then stick all of that in St Kevin's Arcade, a heritage building with fairy lights and leadlight details. The working week was, suddenly, a million years ago.

We ordered octopus with paprika and crispy lamb bits ($25) and it reminded me of dishes we'd eaten in Spain, where chorizo fat slicks the chunky-tender tentacles. This was much better because it seemed very much of this place.

More lamb. The most expensive of the "large" plates was succulent rare rump and super-spicy soft (almost black pudding textured) sausage ($40), tied together with the smokiest eggplant I've eaten and potato but not as you would normally know it - gnocchi meets mash, with a lot of cheese and an almondy crumble. As with the chicken, any one of these components was a delight on its own but we enjoyed mixing and matching (take care, that sausage is really fiery).

Mezze goodness at Gemmayze St. Photo/Sylvie Whinray

It wouldn't be an Auckland restaurant if there wasn't roasted cauliflower but if you're looking for a point of vegetarian difference, get the charred cucumber with powdered mint, flaky yeast and a milky fresh ricotta ($16). The pulpous texture is a challenge; there is no sweetness or heat. Summer was for smashing smashed cucumber salads; this was the autumnal segue I didn't know I was missing.

There was such a quiet glamour about the food that flowed from this kitchen - simply plated and robustly flavoured - that dessert was almost a shock. It took piped tahini mousse, glossy squares of rich chocolate marquis and perfectly placed fresh cherries ($20) to really remind me this was a restaurant. It was a measure of this restaurant that I had, momentarily, forgotten that fact.

Gemmayze Street, St Kevin's Arcade, Karangahape Rd, Auckland, Ph (09) 600 1545. We spent: $258.50 for three.

GEMMAYZE STREET DRINKS LIST

I'll be honest. Gemmayze Street could have cold compost juice and sparkling saveloy water on their drinks list and I'd still go there. I've only ever had knee-slappingly lovely food experiences there and it states in my will and testament that when I die, I want to be sent to heaven in a coffin loaded with their hummus. I love that there's nary a chardonnay or sauvignon to be seen in the "by the glass" list and instead one's chops are challenged by the white Lebanese grape Obeidi, blends of grenache gris and carignan, gruner veltliner from organic Marlborough producers Rock Ferry and sparkling riesling from Waipara by Japanese winemaker Takahiro Koyama. It also brings me grins to see that apart from one Italian prosecco and three French Champagnes, the entire bottle list is made up of delicious sips from Aotearoa and Lebanon alone. Wines like the organically crafted, wonderfully wild and woolly Black Estate chardonnay, Organised Chaos chenin blanc and Colere semillon share a shelf with Chateau Fakra's Kfardebian viognier, sauvignon, muscat blend. And that Lauren Swift's sensational Bridge Pa syrah cuts shapes with Domaine Wardy's Bekaa Valley cabernet. I could go into so much more detail about the greatness of this list but all you really need to know is that it's a joy.
- Yvonne Lorkin