Scampi linguine from the menu at SPQR on Ponsonby Rd. Photo/Jason Oxenham
Scampi linguine from the menu at SPQR on Ponsonby Rd. Photo/Jason Oxenham
The restaurant where the linguine is as famous as its patrons is ageing gracefully, writes restaurant critic Kim Knight.
I checked the time and then checked again. Waitstaff were dragging the tables inside and the wheelie bins curbside. 10pm and Ponsonby was, apparently, closing.
It used to require a certaindegree of fortitude to be there for last drinks at SPQR, possibly because first drinks started so early. I recall one spectacular afternoon when a discreet waiter tapped a famous PR person on the shoulder to tell her a famous writer had been collected from the bathroom floor and was now recovering somewhere out the back.
"Were there drugs?" the PR eyeballed the table sternly. Nope. Just Champagne. Enough Champagne to comfortably fill a Waitākere dam. I was freshly arrived from Christchurch, wide-eyed at the loose and drunken wonder of a long Friday lunch. It was months before I realised you could actually order food at SPQR.
Pizza, pasta and other things Italian have been on the menu here since the 1990s. If you didn't feel old when you started reading this review, I bet you do now. SPQR is nearly 30 years old, which is maybe why she goes to bed much earlier on a Thursday?
Streetside at SPQR on Ponsonby Rd. Photo/Jason Oxenham
We'd joined a colleague at an outside table (are these the only white tablecloths left in the city?) although, strictly speaking and in the manner of the very best of Ponsonby occasions, we'd gatecrashed. Our colleague was meeting a visitor from out of town. They worked together in telly, back in the days when journalists were more famous than rich housewives and baby popstars and they had, literally, been to SPQR more times than they could remember.
We ordered some musty, honeyed goat's cheese and sprightly grapes ($18.50). I noticed later the receipt noted the presence of prosciutto but it did not make an impact on the night. There was a lot of white space on the serving plate. Sometimes all it takes to feel decadent is scale and everything at SPQR is a bit larger than life. For example: A man wearing a cowboy hat and five wristwatches on one wrist stopped to chat. He famously dated a blonde socialite who famously threw red wine on a famous Sunday newspaper gossip columnist.
He tried to give us one of his watches and our encounter with Ponsonby Past was at least as satisfying as the lamb chops that we ate with our hands, because SPQR has always encouraged debauchery over decorum. Also, this is no lollipop lamb chop - you will need to engage all your teeth to get the meat off the bone ($31.50 for three pieces, with a blob of truffled mash to better justify that price tag).
We ordered the last bottle of Cloudy Bay Pelorus bubbly ($88) in the Thursday cellar and perused the soft foods portion of the menu.
Inside SPQR on Ponsonby Rd. Photo/Jason Oxenham
Scampi linguine ($33) was plated like a fairy tale princess ponytail, its long strands gleaming with salty, oily goodness and a good amount of chilli. It was a generous serve with lots of pasta and definitely no skimping on the scampi, which you dug out of the lickable half shell. (When our photographer went back for a shot, it had been plated in the round - but it was just as pretty).
It might have been the light but from where I sat the crayfish ravioli ($39) looked like a luxury eye mask, all satiny and softly padded. Tom declared the crayfish filling "smooth decadence" but said it was difficult to eat practically and impossible to get everything on the fork at the same time. A thin, salty sauce rushed off the al dente pasta pieces, so large they had to be cut with a knife; once cut, the creamy cray puddled into the sauce and it became a bit of a sloppy, slurpy affair, best tackled with a spoon in one hand and a piece of bread in the other.
It's autumn and I am in a mushroomy state of mind. In the past week, I've eaten them spicy and fried, slippery and steamed and, at SPQR, robustly holding their own in a bowl of chalky, scallop-studded risotto ($32). Cherry-pick those little nuggets of shellfish opulence first and enjoy the rich, autumnal rice on its own. A big bowl of umami love.
Dessert to justify a roader? Champagne by the dignified stem, a creamy tiramisu and a very berry-infused brulee ($16 each and huge enough to share). Sweet, sweet dreams. I was fast asleep by midnight - if SPQR can age gracefully, there's hope for us all.
SPQR, 150 Ponsonby Rd, Auckland, ph (09) 360 1710. We spent: $351 for three.
SPQR DRINKS LIST
Dear reader, you can exhale and relax because this week you will not witness me yarping on about not enough wines being available by the glass like a broken record because, oh joy, oh jubilation, we're at SPQR. Pre-1992, when SP first opened its doors, its space actually housed a motorbike repair workshop. Ponsonby Rd used to be delightfully grimy. Who'd have thought that where once the floors were oil-stained and scattered with old Pirellis, 30 years later those floors would be littered with Deadly Ponies duffels and soaked in sauvignon blanc. SP's wine list is class. Almost every wine is available by the glass and prices range from $10 for a cheeky Cecchi vermentino through to $25 for an Amisfield Central Otago pinot – but there's a smorgasbord of $12 to $15 options evenly balanced from local superstars to international lesser-knowns that are too many to mention. I love that you can while away a couple of hours seesawing from soave to shiraz and everything in between like it's no big thing. It's a large list, sure — but it's unfussy, easy to navigate and won't have your wallet screaming for mercy. Grazie SPQR, grazie.
