Jesse Mulligan’s Auckland Restaurant Review: The Grove Is Where You Go For Magnificent Fine Dining With Charisma

THE GROVE

Cuisine: Fine dining

Address: St Patrick’s Square, Wyndham St, CBD

Reservations: Accepted

Phone: (09) 368 4129

Website: Thegroverestaurant.co.nz

Drinks: Fully licensed

From the menu: Six-course tasting menu $195

Rating: 20/20

It’s a sad reflection of where my life has got to that I was quietly avoiding dinner at The Grove, a restaurant judged best in Auckland by numerous critics on numerous occasions. I’d heard there was an exciting new chef in the kitchen but they have cried wolf a few times on that one over the years.

If I waited another six months, maybe this guy would disappear prematurely like the last three and I could pretend he’d never existed. Because although the food here is always fantastic, a visit to The Grove feels like a big commitment — financially and durationally (it’s a word, I checked).

But it was my wife’s birthday and I wanted to take her somewhere special. That’s a hard problem to solve when you dine out every week and when many restaurants are travelling in the opposite direction: thumbing their nose at fuss and aiming for a tone about 2 per cent fancier than your own lounge.

The Grove is one of the few places still worthy of a real occasion, and so I booked us in there for 6.30pm and (I will admit this to you because we are friends) quietly hoped that we might finish early enough to get home and watch some TV.

Moments after stepping inside I remembered why this restaurant is great — why eating here is far from that formal and long-winded experience I’d been imagining. I’d forgotten the warmth that this place has — the fact that although everybody is trained to almost PhD level in restaurant service, they’re also encouraged to be human and interesting too. They are hired for their charisma, as well as their expertise.

Even our first walk through the room was impressive. “Hello”, “Good evening!”, “Happy Birthday”, said various staff members as we passed them on our way to the table. “We got you this birthday card,” our waitress said to us later — “it looks printed inside but actually one of the girls knows calligraphy.”

This personality-forward style only works if you are doing the basics perfectly too, and The Grove has very, very high expectations when it comes to the basics.

“I’m going to go make somebody cry,” owner Michael Dearth joked (I think) when he heard a waiter drop a piece of cutlery two tables away. Meanwhile, a lot of the best stuff was taking place almost invisibly: a server sees you moving toward the bathroom and is there holding the door open by the time you arrive.

And the new chef, Cory Campbell, is magnificent. He is pretty starch-free himself, despite a weighty CV cheffing at places like Ahi and Vue de Monde (Dearth has somehow also convinced the sommelier and maitre d’ from that famous Melbourne restaurant to reunite at The Grove).

An unshaven, modest figure, he simply said, “Hi, I’m Cory,” when he arrived at our table then picked a bright red sliver of venison from a pink salt block and rolled it up like a tiny camper mattress.

Like this salt-licked venison, most of his food is fine and original enough that it would stand up in any of the world’s famous restaurants.

A piece of eel comes with caviar but also white chocolate — that surprising ingredient lending some fatty creaminess and only trace sweetness to the mouthful. A pāua shell is filled with numerous delights: duck, shiitake and the abalone itself, all hiding in a seafood foam. A spectacular mushroom course features about 100 different fungi served without adornment, just a duck egg yolk for luxury. A refresher course comes with flowers and herbs that are freeze-dried in front of you before you’re invited to crush them with a wooden pestle.

And then, midway through your savoury courses comes perhaps the boldest move I’ve ever seen in a fine dining restaurant: a grilled kingfish head on a plate with no attempt made to pretty it up.

I’m all for it — real fish lovers know that the fillets are a consolation prize — but how this goes down with the people who’ve been eating here for 20 years I can only imagine. The delicious flesh is hidden in the nooks and crannies of the kingfish’s skull — this nose-to-tail trophy dish involves more navigating of cartilage than most people get in a lifetime.

Good. My wife (who has a job a bit like Wendy in the TV show Billions) talks about a concept called “psychological safety” — meaning that anyone can do hard stuff so long as the environment is secure and supportive. That’s how I feel about this fish head dish. Why not provoke a little reaction in an otherwise risk-free setting?

I’m keen that you discover some of the other surprises on your own, but do plan ahead. The restaurant was full from very early on the night we visited, and I noted plenty of younger types in the room. It was a very reassuring sight in a world where it’s increasingly hard to drag millennials out of their own homes.

There is clearly still demand for special-occasion dining — and, in The Grove, we’re blessed with one of the most special restaurants in the world.

More Fine Dining

Auckland restaurants for a special occasion.

Ahi Offers Unsurpassable Artistry On A Plate. With its many finely spun parts, Ahi is simply flawless.

In Its New Home On Federal St, Cassia’s Food Is Still Faultless. But on service, there’s a bit of work to do.

The New Life & Long Reign Of Sidart. The fine dining restaurant is in great hands with its new chef-owner.

Inside Tala, The New Auckland Restaurant That’s A Samoan Sophisticate. The restaurant brings refined Samoan food to Pasture’s old site, it’s due to open in October.