It has been a long time coming, and while I have always intended to visit The Grove, the priority of visiting the former head chef’s restaurants took priority. The new head chef, Benjamin Bayly, trained in Hamilton and Auckland after growing up in Te Awamutu. It turns out he was a year or two ahead of me at the same high school, prior to his appointment at The Grove he worked under Peter Thornley at Kermadec. I think the last time I ate food by someone that grew up in Te Awamutu was when I lived there in ‘97’.
The setting for the entrance to The Grove is a church courtyard outside St Patricks Cathedral. Inside we were seated towards the rear of the restaurant that seats about 60 people, probably a little more at a pinch, and the decor is elegant while maintaining an approachable comfort level. The bench seat was actually ass-cradleingly excellent. Kind of important when you plan on sitting and eating for 3 hours.
The tasting menu costs 130 per person and consists of 8 courses and includes coffee/tea and petit four after the meal. Every course was good, while others were truly special. The goats cheese gnocchi to start were light and flavourful with some Jerusalem Artichoke and a puree of what I think was confit dates. The most intriguing thing about the Gnocchi was the shape, they were far more elegant than what I has anticipated.
Two other highlights of the evening were the Tuna and the Boar. The tuna went down the line of using sushi flavours, avocado puree and cucumber sorbet. There was a parcel wrapped in a cucumber gel that had shitake mushrooms in it along with some other delicious items that I didn’t take the time to identify. The shiso dressing on the tuna enhanced the raw flavour, it was overall a very enjoyable combination of flavours textures and temperatures.Boar isn’t something I get to eat very often, this instance has me thinking I should make it a more frequent visitor to my dinner plate. Various textures of Celeriac accompanied the crispy liquid boar cake, the glaze that accompanied it was rich and sticky. Very good.
For the tasting menu that we put on a few months ago, I was planning on making a risotto from Celeriac, my supplier fell through however and we resorted to a traditional Arborio base. Ben uses fir potato for the risotto dish that is served with seared scallops crab and morels. It was light, elegant and a fitting combination. From the texture of the scallops I would assume that they were cooked sous-vide before being sealed on one side. I am growing to like crab more and more after the last two restaurants I have visited have used it without being over bearing.
As a cheese course a cheese cake with Tamarillo, then a pre dessert which was blood orange sabyon and a goats milk sorbet which sat on a persimon salad with passion fruit dressing. The goats milk sorbet was very good, light, cooling and with enough depth to counter balance the sweet sabayon.
For dessert a more traditional approach was taken. Lemon soufflé and a gingernut ice cream. The soufflé was served in a small ramekin and was dusted with icing sugar, the texture was light, and the interior still slightly gooey. Not exactly what I expected to follow the other very aesthetically driven dishes, but hell, where else can you go these days and get a freshly made soufflé of perfect execution.
A nice coffee and petit fours rounded off the evening before the bill was presented and the drive home initiated. I was worried that the food might not be up to par with other recent adventures, but The Grove did its self proud, and I enjoyed the whole experience. There wasn’t a single questionable dish. They were all very good and we were very satisfied by the end.
