Mustard custard and ox tongue goodness at Auckland's Depot Eatery. Photo/Jason Oxenham
Mustard custard and ox tongue goodness at Auckland's Depot Eatery. Photo/Jason Oxenham
Depot is famous for its fish sliders but, almost a decade after opening night, restaurant critic Kim Knight finds continued comfort in some lesser-known favourites.
It had been a month of a week. A family funeral, a neighbourhood emergency, a beloved relative's return to her American home and will thispandemic ever end?
Sometimes, you'd rather have a duvet than dinner. Sometimes, you just want to point at a menu and know that whatever you choose will be good. On those nights, I go to Depot.
When chef Al Brown opened this Federal St mainstay in 2011, he had a singular vision. In the book that tells the story of the restaurant's creation, he writes: "Depot = Bach."
Summers at Castlepoint Beach were Brown's point of reference. He would serve wine in tumblers, cutlery would be stashed in tins and the decor would be eclectic - the mismatched flotsam and jetsam proudly displayed in southern cribs and northern holiday homes. (It would not surprise me if, one day, I found a faded stack of National Geographic magazines in the bathrooms.)
Academics have quite a bit to say about the commercialisation of nostalgia. English sociologist Stuart Tannock describes it as a "search for continuity" - as much about retrieval as it is retreat. We go backwards to move forwards and so it is at Depot, where the squashy white bread fish sandwiches of summer at the beach were reincarnated as this country's first "sliders". Depot is famous for those juicy baby burgers that you can eat with a beer but also champagne and an expense account. It's even more famous for redefining "comfort" food, taking bellies and hocks and elevating them to top restaurant status. It unashamedly, and most deliciously, celebrated Aotearoa in a way that we hadn't seen before. Was it one of Auckland's first restaurants to call the gratis welcome snack a koha, rather than an amuse bouche?
It's hard to remember that when this place first opened, the raw bar was a novelty and the "no reservations" policy would make headlines (witness "Boy band goes hungry!" when One Direction couldn't get a table). The smart-casual, retro-cool bandwagon is dangerously full these days but Depot remains the gold standard.
The silver-lining to these no-tourist times is that you can finally get a seat on a Friday night. We were looking for Bluff oysters. They were all out, so I reset my taste buds for raw tuatua, a sand-dwelling shellfish with a clean and robust meatiness. If you're the squeamish type who finds oysters too slimy and mussels too gutty, then I urge you to give tuatua a go. The flavour is delicate, the texture almost squid-like and, at $3 apiece, they're pretty decent value.
Depot is still doing the favourites - aforementioned sliders and a crispy pork hock - but when I saw the words "mustard custard", I knew we'd be having the ox tongue ($20). It's shaved super-thin and tastes like a more refined corned beef. Spread the quenelle of creamy mustard on crispy toast, pile with meat and cornichons and crunch happily. The "custard" soaks cosily into the bread; the sharp stab of the teeny-tiny gherkin keeps things interesting. Lovely.
Shellfish ready for shucking at Depot's raw bar. Photo/Jason Oxenham
Cumin tempura cauliflower with a smoked fish cream and white anchovies ($18) read better than it ate. At first, I thought it must have been the fish (too heavy with brown sugar cure?) and then I realised it was the cauli - sweet enough to have been served for dessert. For my money, the peach and pork lomo ($23) was a better, more zingy beginning.
Luscious, grilled fruit retained its tang. The macadamia was fantastically plentiful and a glisteny veil of cured pork loin tied it all together. The menu descriptor also promises blue cheese, but lower your expectations - it's a light dusting, not a main component - and you'll be an extremely happy diner. I'd eat this dish every day if I could. Sadly, stone fruit season is almost done and soon the only thing left in the fruit bowl will be too many free feijoas.
There are a lot of shiny new restaurants in Auckland right now, but dinner at Depot is a lesson in not forgetting your past. The $38 hāpuku belly is a fish dinner of Sunday roast proportions. Basically, the entire plate is fish and I doubt there is better bang for your protein buck in central Auckland. It's at least five years since I last ate this. It astounded then, and continues to over-deliver now.
Apparently some people don't like hāpuku (too dry, too tough) and those people should stop eating badly fried fillets. The belly cut is a little more fatty and a lot more moist. At Depot, it's briefly marinaded in the same sweet-spicy eggplant kasundi they serve on the side, where its flavour might overpower if there wasn't so much of that gorgeous fish to contend with. Dig into the giant chunks of succulent flesh, refresh with kasundi, repeat. Don't stop there. We scooped up the soft, gelatinous skin and scraped the bones clean. In these difficult times, you can never have too much of a really, truly, good thing.
Depot Eatery, 86 Federal St, Auckland, ph (09) 363 7048. We spent: $193 for two.
