Ponsonby Road Bistro
Ponsonby Road Bistro, or PRB as it has affectionately come to be known, has been around a long time as far as restaurants go in Auckland. Despite the massacred dining scene after a few years of lockdowns, many of these old giants of hospo still remain. But myself and fellow judges for the recent Metro Top 50 Restaurants of the Year awards wondered whether these oldies are in fact still goodies?
There will be some noticeable absentees which previously graced the list for many years. Some tigers never change their stripes, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Why mess with excellence? Unfortunately not every one of these veterans managed to maintain this excellence we found.
PRB certainly remains a stalwart on the list this year. Unbelievably, I’d never been to PRB before now. In my defence, there were always so many new, edgy, exciting places to go to. PRB was already known for being good, so why did I need to see for myself? I finally resolved myself one day to go, because who knows when the next pandemic will roll around, and who knows which of our city’s favourites will open their doors for the last time.
PRB is surprisingly dark and sexy, with a heavy velvet curtain drawn across the entrance giving the illusion that you’re in an exclusive club, shielding you from the prying eyes of the public. The word ‘bistro’ usually springs to mind white table cloths and warm yellow light but here the tables are sleek black and the seating dark chocolate leather. The low lighting and dark décor discourage the (quality) photography of your food.
The menu is simple and short, whilst the wine list is comparatively longer, as is the wall of wine bottles on display lining the entire length of one side of the restaurant. This is a place you come to for simple luxury. Meat, carb, vege are the three pillars upon which each main is based, but the dishes are executed with such deft and finesse you won’t realise how formulaic they really are. There are starters such as chicken liver pate, besan and halloumi fritters, and fried calamari; I would think these are geared towards those here to drink more than dine. The mains are so rich I can’t imagine anyone eating more than just the latter.
There is a choice to be made between scotch and eye fillet for the chargrilled steak with garlic-herb butter and chunky chips, and our scotch arrived rare as specified. The butter aloft was well balanced and avoided the acrid flavour of raw garlic, and the sauce resulting from the intermingling of the butter and pan juices was nothing short of crack cocaine. Every last piece of our tender steak was dragged through this sauce, and every perfectly crispy on the outside and fluffy middled chip was another opportunity to relish this flame-kissed liquor. The wee salad accompanying the steak was fresh and sharp with little bitter notes of radicchio. My one gripe is the delicious crack sauce eventually seeped into the salad, wilting it a little and detracting some of its freshness. If it were me, I’d put it on a side plate, or building a small chip retaining wall, one of the two.
We also ordered the slow cooked pork belly, crispy potato cake with fennel apple slaw, with slight trepidation from my friend who isn’t such a fan of fennel. I’ve never understood people’s obsession with pork belly, a cut so often presented poorly, with under-rendered fat and over cooked meat (how?! It is literally layered between hunks of fat). PRB’s version on the other hand is a master class in pork belly done well (not ‘well done’, you know what I mean), the belly unctuous but not resembling plasma. PRB knows their potatoes, the potato cake of thinly scalloped potatoes was unreal in both its tender centre and the multiple layers of crispy edges that cracked like a chip. I loathe to think of the butter content, and I shan’t. And just when you think that unctuous pork belly, buttery potato and creamy fennel puree is about to overwhelm you, it’s cut short by a sharp simple shaved fennel and apple slaw. Yes, they’re pork’s obvious bedfellows, but it is all done flawlessly, except may I ask for a tiny more crackle to my crackling? There was salt on the table, but it was absolutely not needed, everything was seasoned to a tee.
I don’t know what possessed us, but our waiter offered us the dessert menu, and we obliged. Since the closure of O’Connell Street Bistro, a crème brulee shaped hole in my life has remained unfilled until now. PRB’s is probably the best brulee in Auckland, the custard so fine it’s hard to believe it isn’t liquid. Served the way I like it, in a wide shallow dish for maximal burnt sugar to custard ratio, the glassy torched topping was a touch thicker than usual but I liked it better this way.
PRB’s food is not the kind that I personally envisage myself eating on a regular basis. I’ll need to start taking cholesterol-lowering statins to do so or face the prospect of an early demise. It is the kind of place I want to tell everyone about (hence this review), to remind them that this fantastic temple of hospitality and good food and wine still stands, where you will be guaranteed a good time.
Ponsonby Road Bistro
165 Ponsonby Road, Ponsonby, Auckland
(09) 360 1611