Jesse Mulligan Restaurant Review: Find Woodfired Pizza & A New Wine Bar Next Door At Dunedin’s Seaside Esplanade

Jesse Mulligan owes Ōtepoti Dunedin an apology after prematurely writing off its Sunday dining options.

I’m not saying small towns are sensitive, but I recently upset Dunedin so badly I had to buy a plane ticket so that I could travel down there and say sorry. I won’t bore you with the details (you can read about it in a string of local newspaper articles if you’re interested) but suffice to say I touched down on a Sunday evening to record a radio show on location the next day, and of course my main priority besides winning back the hearts and minds of Otago was to try to find somewhere decent for you to eat.

The first thing I should tell you is that all the decent Dunedin restaurants are closed on Sunday. I searched high and low before eventually emailing my editor Johanna Thornton in Auckland to tell her I was giving the whole thing away.

“How about the new wine bar Piccolo, and Esplanade right next to it?” she suggested.

“How have you even heard of these places?” I replied.

“I wrote a story about them two weeks ago in Viva,” she said.

I made a mental note to apologise to her as well and headed to St Clair, an upwardly mobile suburb by the sea.

The temperature was six degrees above zero and the stormy ocean surf was smashing into the seawall when I got out of my airport taxi ($100, a very normal fare) and wandered into Piccolo, a new wine bar and Italian takeout that is open on both days of the weekend. Funnily enough, it was full of grateful locals and we (me plus the two behind-the-scenes radio guys who’d found themselves shipped off to Dunedin in order to facilitate my apology) found the last three stools at the bar for a round of drinks and Italian-inspired snacks. The bar was all out of both its olive oil-washed house martini and the marinated white anchovies so I drank vermouth with bacalao on foccacia, a perfectly good way of passing half an hour before our table next door at Esplanade became ready.

“We’re trying to educate people that they can spend less time here,” reported the Piccolo chef, making this perhaps the first restaurant in history to try to discourage people from kicking on. They do takeaway pizzas and have an off-licence, which they run from the front door, meaning that you can drop by for a bottle of wine and a boxed-up margherita without ever setting foot in the restaurant. The alternative is apparently picking up a bottle of Banrock Station from the Pak’nSave, which is ages away, so again, I think, the locals will be glad for this new option.

Piccolo had a lovely vibe and we had high hopes for sister restaurant Esplanade next door, where they were packed as well. This second restaurant also specialises in pizza, making these probably the two closest commercial pizza ovens in New Zealand.

“It’s good really,” said one local I got chatting to. “Esplanade used to have queues out the door of people waiting for takeaway pizza so Piccolo will help with the overflow.”

I don’t know where all those queuing pizza hounds would have stood because the restaurant packs chairs and tables into every square inch of floor space, in broadly symmetrical rows that make you feel like you’ve walked into a high school chemistry exam. Most of the floor staff seem about high school age too but they do a friendly and spirited job, overseen by a likable Italian gentleman with an experienced eye over everything.

The wine options are limited and served in bad glasses, though I was pleased to see some unfamiliar craft beers on the list along with a handful of cocktails ($24 for a negroni though! That’s Auckland prices). And the food? Well, I’ll focus on the best of it but Esplanade is better viewed as more of a “whole package” restaurant than a foodie destination.

I think the pizzas are fine – we had a vegetarian in our party so we went for the potato, which was cut surprisingly thick to create a roasted effect under the woodfired flame. It was served with fresh basil and sliced parmesan but I thought it could have used something else for a bit of flavour interest (the rosemary and caramelised onion promised were very sparse). The toppings were also quite centralised on the pizza leaving loads of empty real estate on the outside, which further emphasised the blander elements. But it’s nothing a bottle of chili oil on the table wouldn’t fix and everything was well-cooked.

I also quite liked the formaggi al forno – a skillet full of melty, stretchy, tasty cheese with truffle oil and bread to dip with on the side. We couldn’t finish this – who wants a whole panful of cheese? – but enjoyed the mouthfuls we had.

A gnocchi dish was recommended by the waiter but I can’t endorse it I’m afraid. The gnocchi balls were soft and loose and the tomato sauce was short of love (a shame, because it turns up in a few places). Arancini were nice enough but a lamb pappardelle (also recommended by the waiter) was forgettable – mushrooms doing not much of anything, lamb without a sauce to help it along and pasta strips so wide they were almost lasagne sheets. It tasted of pasta but not much else.

The locals love Esplanade, but I only liked it on this visit. At the right time of day I bet that warm room with views of the sea is absolutely perfect. And if you find yourself in Dunedin on a Sunday night, I guarantee it’ll be the best restaurant open.

ESPLANADE

Cuisine: Italian

Address: 2 Esplanade, St Clair, Dunedin

Phone: (03) 456 2544

Website: Esplanade.co

Drinks: Fully licensed

Reservations: Accepted

From the menu: Arancini $16; gnocchi $28; baked cheese $25; lamb pappardelle $31; potato pizza $26; rocket salad $15

Rating: 14/20

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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