my 2017 review of that place<\/a>, which was generally positive but did complain the room was \u201coverlit, glassy and in need of some music\u201d. They\u2019ve certainly solved that last problem with a stereo system so loud that you must continually ask the person you\u2019re eating with to repeat themselves. At one point, while browsing the menu, I said \u201cthis all looks good, do you have any favourites?\u201d and after a few silent seconds looked up at the waiter who shouted \u201csorry, are you talking to me?\u201d <\/p>\nI have a few of these sorts of complaints but I don\u2019t want to list them all in a row because, actually, I enjoyed my meal at this great little restaurant. It\u2019s casual, buzzy and deliciously good value. The main question they (and their customers) will need to work out is, what gap are they trying to fill? The menu is made up of dishes (pizza, pasta, Italian bistro favourites) that are already done well in lots of places. So why would you come here, in particular? <\/p>\n
![\"Sfera]()
Sfera serves Italian bistro favourites. Photo \/ Dean Purcell<\/p>\n
Probably because you live locally and the food is largely faultless. The ownership team took a month-long trip around Italy to inspire the menu, and though their accountant might wonder if it really required a four-person trip to the Northern hemisphere to come up with the idea of serving arancini, I\u2019m happy to reassure them it\u2019s the best arancini I\u2019ve eaten, inspired by the fashionable cacio e pepe pasta, with splotches of dark mayo so fragrant and flavourful I\u2019ve recategorised black pepper from \u201cseasoning\u201d to \u201cspice\u201d in my mental pantry. <\/p>\n
I enjoyed the flavour of our next two dishes \u2013 melon\/prosciutto and tomato\/peach\/stracciatella. These are pretty reliable combinations if your ingredients are good, but the design of each dish didn\u2019t quite work for me. The first one arrives in a pretty stack, which you have to cut down the middle to share. I don\u2019t know if you can imagine trying to cut through a thin piece of cured ham with only a chunk of melon and some soft cheese below it for resistance, but it\u2019s pretty much impossible not to end up with a wet messy pile, and wet doesn\u2019t really work with charcuterie. I thought the second dish would be sliced but the tomato came in chunks, and so did the peach. Again, nothing wrong with the flavours, but (I guess the opposite problem to the melon dish) I wanted it to be more integrated before I put it in my mouth. To reiterate, both dishes tasted great. <\/p>\n
![\"The]()
The melon prosciutto with whipped ricotta, honey, basil and dill, from Northcote Point’s new restaurant, Sfera. Photo \/ Dean Purcell<\/p>\n
Mains all arrived at once, which surprised me. We feasted on a sliced steak, drenched in a lovely green peppercorn sauce and topped with fresh green herbs, and we really enjoyed our woodfired cabbage with goat\u2019s cheese, almonds and a spicy chilli oil. Our third dish was a very solid rigatoni alla vodka, which may now have taken over cacio e pepe as Auckland\u2019s trendy Italian dish of the mid-2020s. <\/p>\n
Can two heterosexual men share one tiramisu without self-consciousness? Well, we certainly gave it a good go, and left the restaurant happy and replete. We\u2019d had three drinks each, including cocktails, and the bill was more than $100 cheaper than a similar-size meal at The Engine Room a couple of months earlier. Service was a step down, but sometimes that doesn\u2019t matter if all you want is pizza and a glass of wine. Maybe they\u2019ve slotted into a good gap after all. <\/p>\n
Address: 124 Queen St, Northcote Point <\/p>\n
Contact: 09 480 9600, sfera.co.nz<\/p>\n
From the menu: arancini $17, prosciutto and melon $22, tomato and peach salad $26, scotch fillet $56, woodfired cabbage $24, rigatoni alla vodka $24 <\/p>\n
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\u2019t delay.<\/p>\n
According to dining out editor Jesse Mulligan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Can the team behind a former Viva Top 50 Best Restaurant strike gold again? After my evisceration of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":266385,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[6030,4057,3390,151786,67232,151787,156,2740,4241,6101,185,2198,2537,2538,117,111,139,55139,69,44625,2539,151785,4485,7187,32561,159],"class_list":["post-266384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-again","tag-behind","tag-best","tag-buzzy","tag-casual","tag-deliciously","tag-entertainment","tag-former","tag-gold","tag-good","tag-is","tag-italian","tag-jesse","tag-mulligan","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-northcote","tag-nz","tag-points","tag-restaurant","tag-sfera","tag-strike","tag-team","tag-value","tag-viva"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}