Mollies is a true romantic retreat. Photo / Babiche Martens.
Herald rating: * * * *
Address: 6 Tweed St, St Mary's Bay
Phone: (09) 376 3489
Web: www.Mollies.co.nz
Open: Reservations essential
Cuisine: Contemporary
From the menu: Agria potato crepe, salmon, creme fraiche, cucumber, lemon oil $22; Baby chicken, gnocchi, cabbage, pancetta, fig $42; Passionfruit bavarois, cherries, candy floss, glass sugar, coulis $19
Vegetarian: Please ask your waiter
Wine: Best of Marlborough, Hawkes Bay
Which A-list bottom has sat in this chair? Johnny is reported to be in the country. Bono was gonna and Paris ... oh, no, she'd crash down the road at Dad's.
Mollies is home to a swathe of rich and fabulous as they flit through Auckland. One of
those places that people used to call an undiscovered secret until places that are discovered hired PR firms to make sure they aren't.
Which may be why U2 booked it out, then decamped when the press "found out" and camped outside. If camping is permitted in St Mary's Bay, which is frightfully unlikely.
The grand concrete villa on Tweed St was home to an early mayor. Then - please see the funny side - a convent for the Little Sisters of the Poor. Lastly, the 70s' Harbour Bridge Motel.
Run by a woman called Mollie, whose daughter, opera tutor Frances Wilson, and her husband, opera designer Stephen Fitzgerald, filled it with antiques and objets d'art (Jude wondered if it was a Fragonard in the foyer. I thought Fragonard was French for strawberry), and created the boutique hotel, wedding venue, celebrity hideaway.
Which is why you have to book, I explained to Jude as we parked outside the new premises of the Little Sisters of the Not Quite So Well-off. "Imagine if you were Wentworth Miller, here for some peace and quiet, and people like us turn up for dinner, and sit at the next table." Jude's eyes glazed. I think she was imagining it.
Greeted graciously, escorted into a parlour, seated on leather sofa, offered wine and amuses-bouches, surrounded by mirrors, faux-marble walls, orchids in fluted vases, candles. And more candles. It seems like a scene from a grand opera when ...
"We're going to have some singing," announces the maitresse from the piano, and introduces the resident tenor and whatever you call the woman who sings the Bali Hai notes. It was spectacular and the Aussie telly starlet kept her eyes open for most of it.
We are led to table in what used to be the front garden, now terraced and glassed-in. Sounds so much classier than "perspexed-in". Tableware, floral arrangements, service are as operatic as the arias.
The menu is interesting. It's interesting because it's divided into Starters, Middles and Mains. The starters are $22, which is what you can pay for a main in some places, the middles $27 and the mains turn up for $42. Glasses (not bottles) of Kiwi wine are only a few dollars less.
Sound steep? Only if you think in Kiwi dollars. If you're Cate, Nicole, Harvey, here to make a flick, your tax attorney would be converting them to greenbacks. I priced a near-as-dammit meal at Robert de Niro's TriBeCa Grill. Food: US$116, or NZ$146. Mollies asked NZ$139.
The style is found in international hotels and the like (one of the perks of this job. You occasionally go to international hotels and the like so you can write that with the appearance of authority).
Applaud chef for introducing overseas guests to Kiwi produce - salmon, squid, lamb, "hapuka fish" - but that's as far as the Aotearoan input goes. The dishes are from any contemporary source: twice-cooked quail, courgette chutney, tomato, pecorino, romesco for me; sweetcorn risotto, parmesan, crab, lobster oil and basil for Jude. Is it possible to get any more flavours on a plate?
Moving into the $42 zone, "rack lamb" (at these prices I'd expect the "of" to be included) with potato, porcini, red cabbage, spinach. Fewer ingredients and much better for it. Nice enough but ... an okay night at Prego, not being wowed at, say, O'Connell St Bistro.
Jude made the best choice: the classic crayfish (nice to see they haven't called it "lobster") in a herb broth with savoy cabbage, mushrooms. Sweet. Tender. It worked.
It's summer fruit season, and Jude fancied berry souffle with raspberry coulis and vanilla icecream, but it would take 25 minutes. So we filled in the time with a rather delish warm chocolate marquise (okay, saucy pud) and berries. The souffle arrived and was sent on its way in rather less time than it took to prepare. Tad chewy.
Looking back, the setting and the music and the flowers and the service were all in the best of taste. The food ... well, unlike the performers, it didn't sing.
Just as well we have a paragraph or two left, for I have to mention that we came to Mollies because The Lady Editor wanted us to find one of the flashest and most romantic places in Auckland to have a Valentine's Day treat. We did, and it was nice to be transported to a lifestyle for a couple of hours. Until we reclaimed the car.
