Pricey trip to the suburbs Banque offers a well-considered wine list. Photo / Getty Images
Address: 311 Remuera Rd, Remuera
Phone: (09) 522 6688
I copped a bit of flak for my description of New Lynn the other week, so just to show that I am an equal-opportunities loudmouth, can I point out that I loathe going to Remuera in a way that makes my opinion of New Lynn appear positively glowing.
There is
something about the opulence of the shops that immediately turns me into a class warrior and the inability of the half-starved blondes to drive their oversized 4WDs in any one given lane makes me either weep uncontrollably or swear alarmingly.
So it is quite a sacrifice on my part to have to venture into the land of the trophy wife, but I swallowed my pride this week after hearing great things about a place I believed was called Bonk. I should have known. This was Remuera, after all, where a bar named after the horizontal mambo would be so infra dig as to be subterranean. Instead I found Banque, an oyster bar and "gastro pub", a ghastly concept I still can't fathom, except that it seems to imagine for some reason that food is the primary reason for entering a bar.
It's all very pleasant, of course, as one would expect from such Elysian environs. It was clean and smart and the staff were welcoming.
