So, the night before a rather large day at the cricket (NZ v AUS) chase and I decided to take chases’ mate to dinner at a fairly iconic Auckland city eatery – Depot. As usual the place was buzzing and we needed to have a few pre dinner drinks cocktails next door at Masu until a table freed up. No problems there. An hour and a bit later we were seated.
Everything on the menu is to be shared – as the diligent waiters let you know when you’re seated.
first up
Shellfish freshly opened from the raw bar – venus clams, tuatua and oysters. All delicious, especially the tuatua.
secondly
Two of their signature dishes – roast marrow bones with parsley + shallot salad and harissa lamb ribs with skordalia. The lamb ribs were very nice, crispy on the outside and meltingly tender inside, the skordalia is a perfect accompaniment. The marrow was gluttonously great but rather overpriced. The waiter suggests a nice dry glass of bubbles to cut straight through the grease… we didn’t need much convincing to order another bottle.
yes, there’s more
Crispy pork hock with apple + horseradish and squid ink linguine with clams + chorizo. The pork skin was nice and crispy, yet the meat a bit dry and the accompaniments lacked a bit of punch. Linguine was very nice.
dessert
They’re renowned for their sugar pie, so we order a serve to go with our espresso martinis. The pie wasn’t our thing, pastry was soggy and the filling wasn’t too exciting.
All in all it was a good meal. Nothing new to order over the course of a year is our only complaint. The waiter was an absolute boss! Big shouts to him for being such a host. Will come back when the menu changes and we get to see what else the crew at Depot can cast their magic on.