Something to hum about

Hum­ming­bird has been on Courte­nay Place for a long time (twelve years!), and has just under­gone a com­plete refur­bish­ment. The Welling­ton­ista was invit­ed along to check out the revi­talised space and new menu, and what we found was very very good.

In their own words:

The site was once, many decades ago, a butcher’s shop and in the process of peel­ing back all the room’s many lay­ers we found that shop’s orig­i­nal tiles and brick.  They were incor­po­rat­ed in our design, and so the place is some­thing of a palimpsest, with the old com­ing through to the new.

The new Hum­ming­bird has a lot more empha­sis on eat­ing, and much of the design has been aimed at mak­ing the din­ing room more com­fort­able.  We’ve also retained a whole new kitchen team and so have a new food offer­ing, which is heavy on using good, local pro­duce and try­ing not to do too much to it.

Our own words fol­low after the jump. Cau­tion: con­tent will con­tain mouth orgasms and make you hun­gry.

I had­n’t been to Hum­ming­bird for a long time, because I did­n’t think it was real­ly the right bar for me. Jed from Hum­ming­bird acknowl­edges that it had become some­what known as ‘Cougar* Ter­ri­to­ry’ (and one of my din­ing com­pan­ions con­firmed that his work­mates had ‘warned’ him about this when he said that he was going to din­ner there), and so work has been done to change the atmos­phere. The ren­o­va­tions have suc­ceed­ed in giv­ing the space much more of a restau­rant feel. Gone are the very ’90s pur­ple walls and that annoy­ing curved screen at the door. Instead, walls have been tak­en out to make the bar area more airy, old tiles and brick are exposed, and tables are made from reclaimed scaf­fold­ing planks.  A gas fire makes the room love­ly and warm on a freez­ing cold night. (The light­ing was­n’t very good for tak­ing pic­tures of food though, unfor­tu­nate­ly, so you will have to imag­ine it, or bet­ter yet, go try it your­self!)

I ordered one of the nicest cock­tails I’ve had in a long time — a spiced old fash­ioned (Wil­let’s sin­gle bar­rel reserve bour­bon, spiced sug­ar, bit­ters) which came with a fire of its own, served with a flam­ing fig in the glass, and once it was sad­ly fin­ished, we went for the Hum­ming­bird house wine, a Pinot Noir avail­able by the glass, 500ml and 1000ml carafe. Sen­si­ble siz­ing!

The menus are sim­ple, print­ed on A3 paper.  “We want­ed every­one to have the full menu on one page and also the cock­tails, and we want­ed every­one to have easy access to the wine list.  The menus are all print­ed in house because the dish­es change a lot, ” says Jed.

Every­thing sound­ed deli­cious and we did­n’t know where to start, so we asked our love­ly wait­ress Flo­rence to ask the chef to send out what­ev­er he felt we should eat. Best deci­sion ever! A dozen Mahu­ran­gi oys­ters (they also had Bluff avail­able) arrived at our table quick­ly, in their half shells on ice. I’m not a huge shell­fish fan, but I thought I’d give these a go. They were deli­cious with a lit­tle of the accom­pa­ny­ing sauce and a squeeze of lemon, lit­tle fresh mouth­fuls of the sea. I’m still not sold on the tex­ture of oys­ters though, so I con­cen­trat­ed on the fresh bread and yum­my Oli­vo oil.

Next our table was cov­ered in a selec­tion of grilled sour­dough that we divid­ed into quar­ters and pounced on. I had nev­er had Waikanae crab before — in fact, you don’t see crab on many restau­rant menus in NZ that I’m aware of (although I’ve some real­ly good crab still in the shell at Chi­na Delight, and also soft shell crab tem­pu­ra at Kura in Auck­land), but this was love­ly. Sweet flesh, mixed with tasty aioli. Yum­m­mm. The mush­rooms with marscapone had the depth of flavour of a thou­sand roast ani­mals, which I dis­cov­ered as I checked the menu again, was because the marscapone was truf­fled. Mean­while the duck neck sausage and pep­pers was incred­i­bly rich as well . Appar­ent­ly duck neck sausage is encased in itself, unlike a tra­di­tion­al sausage. How­ev­er it’s made, it was deli­cious. Unex­pect­ed­ly, I even enjoyed the entree dish of Kapi­ti octo­pus with chori­zo and beets. It tast­ed a lot like parsnip, which is a good thing.

The time between entrees and mains was well-judged, and once again, we divid­ed the plates we received between the four of us. When Flo­rence had told us about the spe­cials of the day ear­li­er on, she’d men­tioned that there were two kinds of aged beef avail­able — we were served the Wakanui Blue scotch fil­let, while there was also a petit angus fil­let from Hawke’s Bay. I don’t know all that much about the dif­fer­ent places, but I love that they do. Localised eat­ing is so hot right now. And apart from that, the beef with its pureed aubergine? Total mouth orgasm. I would­n’t nor­mal­ly order chick­en at a restau­rant because I find oth­er pro­teins more inter­est­ing, but Hum­ming­bird’s was very nice­ly done, a breast roast­ed with lemon and sage (accord­ing to the menu, although it seemed more pan-fried to me). The duck, from the entree part of the menu but real­ly big enough for a din­ner if you had sides as well, was served with lentils and Val­rhona choco­late, and had us in rap­tures. The fish of the day, served with clams, was Snap­per, seared skin on, and was also amaz­ing. But I think my favourite part was the roast pota­toes we were served on the side. They were peeled and turned beau­ti­ful­ly, and there was just some­thing mag­i­cal about them — they kind of remind­ed me of going to some restau­rant as a child — per­haps even a Cobb & Co type place, and encoun­ter­ing deep-fried roast pota­toes for the first time. I know that does­n’t sound like a com­pli­ment, but it absolute­ly is.

We were all very well sat­is­fied and full, so it was just as well that we only had three desserts to share between us.  The creme cata­lana was nice, but the salt­ed caramel sauce that came with the choco­late pud­ding had us fight­ing over who would lick the plate. Salt­ed caramel’s pret­ty trendy right now, but few places make it actu­al­ly salty enough to real­ly wow the palate — Hum­ming­bird’s was spot on. And then there was the Vanil­la Vanil­la Vanil­la — three dif­fer­ent tastes on one plate. The lemon and vanil­la curd was some­thing I would hap­pi­ly eat on toast for break­fast every sin­gle day, the goat’s cheese cheese­cake was utter­ly sub­lime, and hap­pi­ly, the vanil­la pana­cot­ta oblig­ing­ly trem­bled just like a wom­an’s breast, the way a good pana­cot­ta should. We may have had a lit­tle bit of wine when we decid­ed it need­ed to be cap­tured for pos­ter­i­ty:

So that’s a 1200 word tour through a menu. I enjoyed every minute of it. Lau­ra was like “oh god, we have to find fault with some­thing or we’re not being good crit­ics!”. All we could come up with is wish­ing our water had been topped up a lit­tle more, and that there’d been a sauce spoon with the oys­ters. We ate as the guests of Hum­ming­bird, but will def­i­nite­ly be going back on our own dimes. As soon as pos­si­ble.

* I hate the idea of imply­ing women are preda­tors, but I do know peo­ple who choose to iden­ti­fy them­selves as cougars. And I gen­er­al­ly dis­like them. So we’ll run with this for now.