There’s a first time for everything, including ordering snails in Auckland’s arts district, writes Jesse Mulligan.
There are a few things wrong with this Lorne St restaurant, but there is enough right with it that I still think it’s worth a look. There will be a time, when you’ve
I’ve been writing about restaurants for 15 years and I’ve never typed that word before because, unaccountably, snails, the mussels of the earth, appear on almost no other menu in New Zealand. It’s surprising that modern chefs, who are obsessed with finding new proteins and inventive ways to differentiate their cooking from their peers, never consider an experiment that begins on the underside of the compost bin lid. Snails are chewy but pleasingly so, and they’re served in a shell, which is just the sort of visual design opportunity that cutting-edge kitchens love. Maybe customers are just too squeamish about the idea. But served as they are here, with a herby, very garlicky butter and a couple of utensils particularly designed for the job, escargot is a fun and delicious dish.
You might be assuming from all this (and the name – “Paname” is a colloquial term for Paris) that this is a French restaurant, but it’s not that simple; at least, it wasn’t when I asked our waitress about it. She was excellent, but (and this is very Parisian) is in the very earliest stages of learning English which, combined with her extraordinarily thick accent, made it difficult to have conceptual conversations like “what is the deal with this menu?”. She was assisted by a nice kid dressed like the main character of Avril Lavigne’s Sk8r Boi video, who spilled water over our table and kept dropping cutlery but had the one thing in a staff member you can’t teach – an eagerness to please.
It’s an unusual room, with seating split either side of a wide walkway that leads from the street into the bowels of a city block. Despite this somewhat transient setup, they do a good job of creating a bit of atmosphere – the lighting and decor and foliage all combining to create a restaurant that will suit almost anyone. There were students, and corporate types, and groups of happy friends; interestingly, at one point I did a count-up and realised my brother Robbie and I were the only two men in a room of 13 diners, something which statistically only has a 1% chance of happening in the wild. Make of that what you will, but I know that the women I know tend to care about an eating environment more than men do, and that’s perhaps a vote of confidence in the vibe here.
Our burger was cooked rare (it wasn’t meant to be) and so was the steak of the woman next to us (it wasn’t meant to be either). Both worked fine despite this, though it would put off some. Goat cheese croquettes had been prepared with great skill and confidence: a simple wodge of chevre, crumbed and deep fried to golden perfection. And you can’t really go wrong with cured salmon, but this is a really beautiful version: prepared in vodka, apparently, and curled on the plate alongside delicate pickles, “whipped goat’s cream” and drizzled balsamic reduction. A dish like this shows that whoever is making the food can really cook, and I wanted to know more so I went to find him.
The two chefs are hidden in the traditional bistro way, so you have to really stick your head through the pass to say hello. They seemed bemused that somebody wanted to talk to them, and all I could really extract was that this was “French food with local ingredients”. Having failed to be recognised by either the wait staff or the kitchen I decided, two wines deep, to wander around some of the other tables to ask how everybody had enjoyed their meals. And I’m pleased to report that a group of four women, who mysteriously all ordered the steak, experienced no under-cooking whatsoever.
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Advertise with NZME.“It was great,” said one, “though I didn’t like the lobster mac and cheese. It was lobster, and pasta, and cheese, but it didn’t really come together.”
I could see what she meant but I think it’s subjective. I liked this dish fine, and I think it provides what it says on the tin. I wasn’t so keen on the tomato salad (“where are they finding peaches in late May?” I asked Robbie, rhetorically), but all in all it had been an enjoyable meal.
It’s perhaps time for the owner to step out from behind the pass and complete the picture. Not every chef enjoys this aspect of the job – many prefer to toil away and let their food speak for them. But I think a sense of who is doing the cooking and what he’s trying to achieve could really bring Paname Social to life. Until then, file it under “when I’m in the area” or, possibly, “time to take snails off my bucket list”.
PANAME SOCIAL
Cuisine: French bistro
Address: 3 Lorne St, CBD
Phone: 027 309 7079
Website: Panamesocial.co.nz
Reservations: Accepted
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From the menu: Goats cheese croquettes $21, cured salmon $25, tomato salad $24, escargot (six) $19, wagyu burger, $35 lobster mac and cheese $36
Rating: 15/20
Score: 0-7 Steer clear. 8-12 Disappointing, give it a miss. 13-15 Good, give it a go. 16-18 Great, plan a visit. 19-20 Outstanding, don’t delay.
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