Delicious did not live up to its excellent reputation. Photo / Babiche Martens
Herald Rating: * * *
Address: 472 Richmond Rd, Grey Lynn
Phone: (09) 360 7590
Web: www.delicious.co.nz
Open: 5 days, closed Sun-Mon
Cuisine: Italian
From the menu:
* Gnocchi with braised beef, red wine and tomato $19.50
* Smoked mozzarella tortelloni with cherry tomato, pancetta and parmesan $21.50
* Cassata semifreddo $7.50
Vegetarian: Openly
Wine: Hits and misses
Strozzaperti. Such a glorious word. And it can really only be expressed in Italian, rolling the 'r' and hissing the 'zz' and elongating the 'e' and spitting the 'ti'. Actually it's written 'tti' on the menu.
But we are not at Delicious to be picky about spelling, except
to note that if the name of a pasta translates as "priest choker", and several legends have been cooked up to justify that, one hopes Paulie Walnuts doesn't happen by and act out the perceived slight to his native tongue.
Delicious wasn't planned. It was one of those very Auckland things. Jude and I were on that side of town, THAT cloudburst hit ... do we drive across the city, through the deluge, snarled traffic, then think about cooking? Or stop here, hope the inevitable wait for a table isn't too long, because we've both enjoyed its delicious (small d) pasta in the past.
Which was how we found ourselves, alongside several other hopeful faces and stomachs, at the back bar, reading the wine list for "20 or 30 minutes". Happily, it wasn't: the delay was less than a glass of pinot gris.
The restaurant was full as ever, deep-breathing exercises to inch, or rather centimetre, to a table, then jostle elbows or clash cutlery with Black Lynn's celebrati. There was a Formerly Famous Rock Star to one side; an ageing Real Estater on the other.
Delicious, then half its present size, introduced the species of giant ravioli that now inhabits every menu with a pretension to things Italian. Mine was filled with roasted kumara, taleggio and thyme, lovely balance and combination of flavours, floating in an unctuous (often wanted to use that word) oily bath. Jude's silverbeet, watercress and walnut was no less enjoyable.
They'd taken a little time to arrive, for which our waiter apologised, and we sent him off for another glass of the weekly special, Kumeu River pinot gris. Unfortunately, they'd run out, which meant they'd probably have to change the blackboard for most of Tuesday night and the rest of the week. Made do with the second choice and a soft Umani Ronchi Montepulciano.
A waitress brought our mains, after another wait, for which she did not apologise. "This'll be the risotto, and this'll be the tagliatelle," she said, dropping them in front of us. Aah, no. His'll be the tagliatelle and hers will be the risotto.
At which point we shall digress. For Delicious' service can be ... well, if you believe the urban myths and the experiences alleged on dining guide websites, some staff graduated from the Basil Fawlty Academy of Hospitality. Until this evening, I'd never had a whiff of it.
Back to the food. Jude had fallen in lust with the night's risotto, pancetta and broad bean and rocket, while I craved the merest suspicion of meat, and took the tagliatelle with Italian sausage (there are several hundred: I'm not sure which this was). The merest suspicion of meat was what I got: there may have been some lurking under the sauce of finely chopped leeks, ricotta and parsley.
Possibly to placate the waitress we swapped plates when we reached the halfway line. "What do you think?" Jude asked, of the risotto. I thought the rice lacked creaminess, depth; and none of those three flavours had much to say for itself. She said much the same of the tagliatelle, although not the bit about the rice, of course.
Never mind, we thought, for she had fond memories of panna cotta here. Frangelico and vanilla this night. Enough to say she still has fond memories of panna cotta at Delicious, but not this undistinguished example.
Disappointed? Yes. Why? Remembrance of times pasta.
