Plainly they are trying to keep it approachable - you can get three courses (chosen a la carte, not as a set menu) for $69 - but, aside from the fab view, the whole experience was devoid of the wow factor.
They do their best to make you feel welcome, even a bit special, when you arrive, to the extent that they can when they're essentially ushering you through a security procedure. The parking validation, which lowered the ruinous cost to $5 for three hours, was appreciated, too. It soothed my anguish during the 20 minutes that we spent after dinner searching for the Corolla in the car park, which was presumably designed by MC Escher.
But the period between arrival and departure was one of mixed pleasures. I started with a carpaccio of seared beef that was sliced so tissue-paper thin that it was practically painted on the plate.
Presumably it was an attempt to cut costs - the meat can't have weighed more than a few grams - but fewer, thicker slices would have been much more satisfying.
The accompanying cracked wheat salad, which tasted a lot like the couscous you get in the deli at Countdown, added nothing but mass.
The Professor chose two vegetarian dishes, which turned out to be a serious error. Her "Moroccan" filo parcel bore no discernible trace of North Africa, although sumac allegedly seasoned an accompanying baby-beet salad. The parcel itself seemed to contain nothing other than Puhoi goat cheese; it was tasty enough, but you need to add imagination to ingredients to make a a dish.
Worse was to come in the form of what was billed a "mushroom and potato mille-feuille". The French name, which means "thousand-leaf", is usually applied to the French patissier's version of a custard slice known as a Napoleon - a delicate and delicious confection when done right. And, the advertised ingredients notwithstanding, one might have hoped for something similar here. But what arrived was really just scalloped potatoes flecked with mushroom. Served on a bed of mashed potato, in case you hadn't got the point, it was not so much a symphony of potato as a death march; think Swan Lake scored by Wagner.
My baked salmon, by contrast, was delicious, crusty but juicy, though the squid ink "paint" was one of the silliest ideas I've ever seen. To reduce one of the glories of Venetian cuisine to a hard smear that can be tasted only if literally chipped off with a thumbnail, is to display a preoccupation with appearances that verges on dangerous self-regard.
I rather liked the jaffa fondant dessert since it referenced a Kiwi classic, but quite what fresh mangoes were doing in a tapioca dessert in late May is anyone's guess.
If it's worth having an a la carte restaurant at the top of the tower, this one is still in need of a good shake-up, I reckon.
