Otto's, Auckland City

By EWAN McDONALD for viva

"May you live in interesting times," runs the ancient curse, and times have been interesting at Otto's.

When we last met on these pages, a mere 15 months ago, we were greeted by the then owner and enjoyed a fine meal from Mathew McLean's kitchen which placed the restaurant safely inside Viva's A-list for last year.

Since then, there has been an ... ahem, re-assignment of ownership, for reasons familiar to those who read the NZ News section of this website.

There has also been a change at the stoves: Jason Blackie, an award-winner at Sails, has been at Otto's since October or so, an assured and elegant chef du cuisine who brings an international collection of flavours and ideas that define a world-class dining-room.

And one or two alterations out front. Tom McGuire, much-loved of City diners, looked after the old magistrate's courtroom while the previous owner was occupied elsewhere. McGuire has departed for his new cafe, Reuben.

So last week's visit felt like a new experience, as we were seated at the far end of the room, looking back past the enormous, flaming fireplace towards the high windows at the Kitchener St End, as they say in the cricket commentaries.

"It's probably the most international-feeling dining room in town," said Ann, and she's right. "When you're at White, you couldn't be anywhere other than Auckland. Same at Gault, with the traffic running up and down Parnell Rd. Soul, Mikano, Euro, you've got the yachts and the harbour. Here you could be in any major world city: New York, London, Madrid."

Perceptively, again: "Do you know what makes this different? This is a couple's restaurant," which was right, for every one of the seven or eight tables was inhabited by XX-XY chromosomes, apart from the one near the door where two men were talking business and one bored wife wasn't. Perhaps this clientele also excuses the Commodores-y music. Then again, no, it doesn't.

Bartley's elegant food takes a familiar base, of fish or fowl or flesh, and adds an unexpected taste from here and a less ordinary texture from there. Confit pork belly with braised squid and cashew salad. Rare tuna, Szechuan crusted potato croquette, citrus braised fennel and scallop roe. Malaysian spiced pork loin with Beluga lentil dahl and oyster mushroom. It's in the style that English critics used to call fusion until they decreed that it had gone out of fashion.

Tempted briefly by the thought of beetroot soup - hot with parmesan and spinach or cold with cucumber and coriander - Ann gloried in a delicate snapper carpaccio, fillets marinated in lemon, grapes macerated to near-disintegration, a tiny salad. My tiny gnocchi, even more subtly flavoured with lemon and herbs, resting in a "bowl" of braised onion, could be summed up in one word. Even when they had been spiked with smoked capsicum puree, that word was "bland".

The mains had been to the hotel gym, sported more muscular tones. "Darned fine," declared Ann, of that pork loin with its spices, pulses and fungi. I don't often order chicken in flash restaurants but as Antoine Brillat-Savarin, the world's first restaurant reviewer, wrote, "Chicken is the palette upon which a chef displays his art." Bartley had artfully stuffed the leg with wild mushroom and feta, juxtaposed against a bold salad of wilted red chard and a preserved lemon salsa. Dahl and preserved lemon: remember, North African touches are the go this year, folks.

Otto's doesn't offer many wines by the glass. Pinot gris seemed the best mate for the snapper; Brian, our young and capable waiter, agreed and suggested a Palliser. Gnocchi, spiced pork and chicken? A softish red could handle those, so Brian pulled a bottle of Te Kairanga Reserve 03 in the cellar.

Desserts are not the kitchen's strongest hand. I should have been easily pleased with a licorice bavarois with Drambuie caramel and raspberry mascarpone - solid food that tastes like Pernod with a shooter - but it read better than the reality.

Otto's room, style and prices put it into the "special occasion restaurant" for most diners. Perhaps it's the after-effect of all those changes, perhaps it's a younger staff (hosts like McGuire, Mark Wallbank and Philip Sturm are hard acts to follow), perhaps other places have caught on and moved up. But apart from Bartley's food, the package feels as if it's missing some styley wrapping and a bow at present.

Open: Dinner 7 days

Owner: Mark Ching

Chef de cuisine: Jason Bartley

On the menu:

Seared scallops with vanilla romesco roast pumpkin and lamb sweetbread $21

Rare tuna Schezuan crusted potato croquette citrus braised fennel and scallop roe $32

Peach and vanilla panna cotta with sundried cherries $13.50

Vegetarian: Options on menu

Wine: Vintage selection

Crowd: Older, quieter couples

Disabled access/toilets: Lift access, excellent facilities

Parking: Valet parking $12.50; street parking zip

Bottom line: Jason Bartley's elegant food takes a familiar base of fish, fowl or flesh and adds an unexpected taste from here and a less ordinary texture from there, at a restaurant where the room, style and prices whisper "special occasion" for many diners. However, in the wake of kitchen, front-of-house and ownership changes, Otto's is a tick short of the finer touches at present.

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