Chef Lesley Chandra, owner of Ponsonby’s Sidart, has taken a leaf out of Netflix with the launch of his new tasting "series" menus.
The options, available now, range from a mini-series over nine parts and the extended series over 12 to the full meal deal, a 16-part complete series. Prices go from $160 to $210 a head.
Restaurant manager and sommelier Joe Costello has also factored in three drinks pairing choices, with either local or international options, including wine from Sidart’s cellar, whisky or sake.
Chandra, formerly the head chef at Cassia, took over Sidart two years ago and has elevated the snack, savoury and sweet morsels to an art level.
Across all the menus, however, are hints of the Pacific, reflecting Chandra’s Fijian background.
Lighter bites include a crispy blackberry meringue with duck-liver mousse and olive praline; fish and chips, and a potato tartlet with smoked trevally and green strawberry tartar.
The savoury menu includes charcoal-seared scampi with unripe peach and apple, and raw wagyu beef with pickled butternut in elderflower and Fijian taro shards.
Elevating the simple snack: blackberry meringue with duck-liver mousse and olive praline. (Image: Alex McVinnie)
At the sweet end of the table are a whey sorbet with green gooseberry and spruce oil, or elderflower sorbet with pine-nut purée.
Elderflower sorbet. (Image: Alex McVinnie)For diners who don’t have time for the full taster series – it can take between 90 minutes and three hours to get through all this – there is still the bar menu, with cocktails paired with seasonal canapés. That’s at $75 for two guests.
Chandra’s penchant for doing things differently has led to Sidart being named the second-highest-rated New Zealand restaurant in this year’s global La Liste top 1,000 restaurants, with a score of 89.5 out of a possible 100.
Six other NZ restaurants also made the world's top 1000 list: Sid at The French Café (94 points), The Grove (88.5), Kazuya (85), Cocoro (83.5), Pasture (77) and Don Alfonso at Helena Bay Lodge (75). All except Northland's Helena Bay Lodge are in Auckland.
Sidart
Three Lamps Plaza, 283 Ponsonby Rd, Ponsonby, Auckland
Lunch, Sat; dinner Tues-Sat
Reservations recommended
sidart.co.nz
Phone (09) 360 2122
