Ōrewa on a Sunday night was busier than Ponsonby Rd. But is it worth a detour?
“There’s not much happening in Ōrewa on a Sunday night,” said my waitress apologetically.
I’m not sure she was right. You could make a reasonable case that Ōrewa on a Sunday night is busier
than Ponsonby Rd. There were at least four or five restaurants open as I drove through town, and although none was exactly pumping, a crowd was gathered watching NRL at the bar next door and around a dozen people were eating inside Semola when I sat down, with the rain pouring outside.
I’d arrived with high hopes. A local correspondent emailed with good news about this place and, though it had taken me three years to get here, making the news somewhat old, it made a good stopping point on the school holiday drive home from Northland. There’s no such thing as the wrong restaurant, only the wrong occasion.
The steak ageing fridge at Semola. Photo / Alina Hesse
Semola describes itself as a handmade pasta and steak restaurant. The steaks certainly look good, ageing impressively in a glass-fronted fridge you pass on the way to the bathroom, but I chose the $69 “Trust the Chef” menu, a generally reliable way of getting to grips with a large, unfamiliar menu.
I should have read the small print. Trusting the chef at Semola gets you just four courses, one of which is bread. Partway through this GLP-1 degustation menu, I realised what was going on and attempted to order more food but the kitchen had already closed (it was 8.29pm).
Regular readers will know that I generally order everything that moves, so please forgive me this one miscalculation, as I attempt to review a handmade pasta and steak restaurant having eaten neither handmade pasta nor steak, and having tried just three dishes plus focaccia.
Semola restaurant in Ōrewa.
To be fair, $69 is good value, and there was more than enough food. But there’s a difference between a set menu and a tasting menu and I think Semola’s problem is mostly one of naming. Call this prix fixe and you’d be delighted. Call it Trust the Chef and you do expect the chef to show you around a little.
The waitress told me that you never quite know what this chef’s menu will look like.
“I once had two people sitting next to each other who got totally different things,” she recalled fondly. She was fun and conversational all night, sharing a few notable local features.
“It’s so hard to find a park around here, especially when church is on. We have a dedicated whiskey bar next door, which had a few day-drinkers earlier. They probably came from the church.”
Chat, chat, chat. There’s often a natural energy to service staff in a small town – the sort of thing city waiters get trained out of them, then have to rebuild from scratch.
I was keen for a beer but the options were dire, so I picked a glass of the Bilancia chardonnay from a surprisingly decent wine list. But I had to put it aside when the bread arrived, as a heavy-handed chef had oversalted the dish. The focaccia was lovely – toasty, golden, with deep aromas of baked yeast and rosemary – but it had salt scattered over it and the dish of brown butter was caked in the stuff too; a hint of maple stirred through it didn’t stand a chance. I dug in to try and find some butter that hadn’t been touched but it required some real mining. The food itself was good, so I’m willing to pass this off as a momentary lapse of concentration. It was the last thing I had to complain about that night.
Lamb shoulder from Semola in Ōrewa. Photo / Aline Hesse
The risotto was lovely. Golden yellow and lush, with sweet pumpkin velouté playing off pancetta, Parmesan and crisp fried sage leaves. Then came lamb shoulder, slow-cooked until tender, compressed into a neat little shape and roasted so the outside had taken on some dark, delicious scorching. It came with peas, peperonata and a bright white dollop of ricotta. The ricotta seemed an odd choice when I first saw it but didn’t clash. Another very good dish.
Dessert was sticky toffee pudding, and it was a fantastic specimen. Perfectly cooked, with that slight wobble when touched, some extra texture from what I think were macadamias, a very good toffee sauce and ice cream melting against the hot pudding at exactly the right speed.
This should be where the review ends but I worried about you all week, eventually giving in and driving back out to Ōrewa to try some more food. On night two, the cacio e pepe rigatoni was surprisingly bland and the pasta water hadn’t been adequately salted; a popcorn cauliflower tasted of not much but was crunchy and fun to dip and chomp. Weirdest of all, they had a new $49 menu featuring seven different dishes. But it was only available for two diners or more, meaning your saddo solo restaurant reviewer missed out on the goods once again. Let’s call the food hit and miss, though I suspect you’ll have a good time either way.
Cuisine: Italian-inspired
Address: 1 Moana Ave, Ōrewa
Hours: Tuesday to Thursday, 3-9pm; Friday to Saturday, 11.30am-11pm; Sunday, 11.30am-9pm; Monday, closed
From the menu: Trust the Chef $69; cacio e pepe rigatoni $32; popcorn cauliflower $22
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.
According to Dining Out editor Jesse Mulligan.