Avert your eyes if you are veget­ari­an, have an aver­sion to meat products, or if you’ve had a pet bird and now chick­en is not a menu option. What fol­lows is a dis­cus­sion of a delect­able degust­a­tion din­ner con­sist­ing of game birds.

Unless you belong to one of the three groups above how can you turn away an invite­ to eat five courses, laden with NZ game, matched with wine, at one of Wellington’s best Cafés? We couldn’t say no, so we said yes!

Laura, of Hungry­and­Frozen fame, and I were two of the lucky ones to be inside when Pravda Café shut their doors at 7pm, leav­ing the grand space to be enjoyed over three and a half hours as course after course was served.

We were greeted at the door and offered a glass of fine wine and a range of canapés. The warm Pea Soup shoot­er with truffle oil and parmes­an – silky smooth with the full-mouthed good­ness that only truffle oil can offer. There were also Beet­root and Pine Nut cre­ations, barely set with – I pre­sume – gelat­ine, explod­ing with fla­vour and leav­ing you won­der­ing “what just happened in my mouth” and reach­ing for a second (and third.)

Glen Hou­s­ton, res­taur­ant man­ager for over three years, explained how head chef Adam Rick­etts had worked on the Pop Up degust­a­tion at the Embassy in May this year and wanted to do some­thing sim­il­ar on his own turf.  Adam worked with New Zea­l­and Game Birds and Church Road Winery to cre­ate a menu that gave us a chance to sample game at its finest and also a new series of wine that Church Road had added to their range.

Adam plunged us into the world of game birds with Part­ridge Ter­rine, Tam­ar­illo Chut­ney and Per­sim­mon Bread. Ter­rine isn’t for all but this was exquis­ite – rich and smooth and full of gamey fla­vour, bal­anced by the sharp­ness of the chut­ney and the cakey bread. It was well matched to the cit­rus ele­ments of the Sauvign­on Gris 2011 from the Church Road McDon­ald Series, the new series between their Clas­sic and Reserve ranges offer­ing a few dif­fer­ent vari­et­ies of wine.

I blame the candle light for the poor photo and thank Ins­tagram for mak­ing them more pal­at­able.

Second course con­sisted of game con­som­mé and truffled mush­room tor­tellini paired with the Church Road Reserve Chardon­nay 2010. The com­bin­a­tion of the rich yet del­ic­ate con­som­mé and more aggress­ively fla­voured truffle was excel­lent- full of umami.

The breast of Pheas­ant stuffed with Chest­nut and Sage along­side Saute of Cavolo Nero and Celeri­ac Pur­ee was our third course. After the con­som­mé this was a far light­er fla­voured dish. The pheas­ant breast itself was not ultra gamey. A “So, you’re want­ing to dip your toe in game” type of game fla­vour rather than a “What, you’ve nev­er had a Turduck­en!?” kind of thing. How­ever when matched with the spicy fin­ish of the McDon­ald Series Mar­zemino it really was grand, and the vel­vety pur­ee made me won­der why I’d nev­er sought out celeri­ac before.

Hawkes Bay artist Free­man White had a few paint­ings on dis­play. Free­man has had inter­na­tion­al res­id­en­cies in Edin­burgh, at the Staffel­ter Hoff winery in the Mosel Val­ley in Ger­many and has twice been invited to exhib­it in the Ger­man “REAL Inter­na­tion­al Sym­posi­um for Fig­ur­at­ive Art”. He was also voted Wellington’s Top Artist in 2010. He explained to every­one how the game birds painted in rich detail had not died in vain – describ­ing the meal and accom­pa­ny­ing wine each painted bird even­tu­ally became part of.

The pen­ul­tim­ate course con­sisted of Con­fit Leg of Duck, Heir­loom Beet­root, Jer­u­s­alem Artichoke, Hazel­nut and Mus­tard, paired with the full-bod­ied Reserve Syrah 2010. The meat was so tender it prac­tic­ally leapt off the bone and onto my fork. The rich and earthy com­bin­a­tion of fla­vours and tex­tures con­tras­ted per­fectly with the sharp­ness of the mus­tard, which dis­solved like icing sug­ar on the tongue and woke up the pal­ate.

And finally; the dessert. Oh the dessert. Rhu­barb and Apple Mille-Fueille with Salted Car­a­mel and Rhu­barb Cream. There is not much in this world that I love more than salted car­a­mel and this was some of the best I’ve tasted – thick, prop­erly salty and full of tof­fee good­ness. The wee balls of crisp apple, coupled with rhu­barb and lay­ers of wafers were, with their tart, light fla­vours, an ideal fol­low up to the game courses. The photo does not do it any­thing close to justice.

We feel the night was a great suc­cess – every­one at the tables around us seemed to be hav­ing a grand old time, aided by the excel­lent ser­vice. Hat tip to the per­son in charge of our table, who was jovi­al, know­ledge­able, and made sure our wine glasses were nev­er empty. Finally we’d like to thank Pravda for host­ing us, it really was a fant­ast­ic even­ing.

We’ll be keep­ing an eye on Pravda’s web­site and Face­book for future events – there were whis­per­ings of a sea­food themed din­ner as we left