Review: Everybody's, Auckland CBD

The Confit Salmon at Everybody's. Photo / NZ Herald

Address: Imperial Buildings,7 Fort Lane, Auckland City
Phone: (09) 929 2702
Rating out of 10: Food: 8, Service: 7, Value: 7, Ambience: 8

The habit restaurateurs have of reinventing their venues is common but Everybody's, in the Imperial Buildings complex in central city Auckland, seems particularly addicted.

By my count its present bistro-style incarnation is its third personality in three years.

We enjoyed the previous two, most recently as the Japanese-influenced Izakaya and, as it turned out, we enjoyed the latest one.

This incarnation offers options from nibbles that might accompany a drink or two through to small plates and mains to share allowing you to construct a meal of almost any proportions. It is, of course, guesswork ordering such meals when small plates in Auckland range from the barely visible to the obesity shovel. Appeals to the staff as to whether you have a reasonable total, even when they are trying to be helpful, as they were here, depend on their assessment of your capacity.

Our choices, as so often with this style of food, started modestly but accumulated to the frankly greedy as rather too many of the choices proved difficult to pass up.

The style is largely modern European, with traditional favourites flashed up with innovative grace notes from executive chef James Pask, who has an impressive CV from overseas and in noted New Zealand establishments such as Wellington's Shed Five and Auckland's Clooney.

Illustrative of the style was the venison, which was listed as coming with cocoa, black garlic, macadamia, Oloroso sherry and porcini mushroom - and all this in a $15 small plate.

I cannot pretend that in the dim light of the restaurant I could see all this but, surprisingly, most of the flavours did flick across the palate in what was a tempting little dish.

Our other small selections were similarly successful, with the grilled wagyu steak tartare and oyster cream receiving a particularly appreciative welcome as did the carnivore delight of a game terrine with a duck liver parfait and chestnut cream.

The marinated grilled squid was tender and had more taste than this dish often offers and the smoked, salted beetroot with walnut, apple and goat's curd was a contrast to the animal offerings.

We all felt we had started well but the outstanding pleasure was to come, with the arrival of our shared main dishes. These were a lamb shoulder, slow-cooked to the state where it pulls apart, bursting with flavour and ideally matched with an anchovy and mint salsa verde, and confit salmon with mandarin and wild sorrel. The treatment of this had produced fish of a wonderful texture and flavour, pointed up by the citrus tang of mandarin.

We had accompanied these with good duck fat chips, although I cannot speak for whether the smoked tomato ketchup added much as I fail to share the enthusiasm for slathering dishes with this particular addition.

The winter bitter greens dominated by chicory were good with poached pear and a blue cheese dressing.

By this time we had really had enough but one of the party had room for dessert and the lemmings followed.

The lemon posset was a mildly flavoured mousse, pleasant without arousing the enthusiasm shown for the mains. The Valrhona chocolate was well flavoured and a pretty demonstration of the dessert-maker's technique.

If the food had been sophisticated the service was a little patchier. On arrival we stood around, coats in hand, like the proverbial spare guests at a wedding, and watched as the staff resolutely walked away, leaving us to dump our stuff behind our seats.

Some of the servers were knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the fare while others were trying hard but seemed new to the game.

The split-level, post-industrial premises remain attractive and the food certainly makes a case for including Everybody's on the list of must-visit city establishments.