Eye opening

While Our Tim got to take a sneak peek at Tuatar­a’s new Te Aro brew­ery and bar before it opened, I had the oner­ous task of drink­ing free beer rep­res­ent­ing The Wel­ling­tonista at the offi­cial open­ing func­tion. It was a suit­ably illus­tri­ous crowd, packed with the doyen(ne)s of Wel­ling­ton’s craft beer com­munity, includ­ing the LBQ team, Shiggy tend­ing the bar, and Stu McKin­lay (who is sadly about to depart Wel­ling­ton in order to get Yeast­ie Boys up and brew­ing in the UK).

Descartes believed that the pineal gland was our “third eye”, the prin­cip­al seat of the soul and the elu­sive con­nex­ion between body and mind. Some of the bar’s mar­ket­ing plays on the par­al­lels between this and the tuatar­a’s ves­ti­gi­al pari­et­al eye, with a mur­al fea­tur­ing astro­lo­gic­al glyphs and the tagline “Temple of Taste”. It’s easy to go over­board with such theo­soph­istry, but thank­fully the allu­sions are restrained, and the main theme is just “micro­brew­ery and cas­u­al bar in a taste­fully ren­ov­ated brick build­ing”. Per­haps Bataille’s philo­sophy, which saw the pineal gland as an organ of deli­ri­ous excess, might be more appro­pri­ate giv­en alco­hol’s time-hon­oured role in free­ing humans from the shackles of prudent ration­al­ity and con­scious­ness.

“The eye, at the sum­mit of the skull…plays the role of a fire in a house; the head, instead of lock­ing up life as money is locked in a safe, spends it without count­ing, for, at the end of this erot­ic meta­morph­os­is, the head has received the elec­tric power of points.”

— Georges Bataille, Vis­ions of Excess

But The Third Eye looks far too respect­able for this sort of malar­key, and I’m sure all rev­elry will be with­in the bounds of good Wel­ling­ton middle-class decency. Host respons­ib­il­ity is ensured by the Goose Shack­’s truck in the ram­shackle out­door space, and while snacks such as deep-fried black pud­ding evoke a cer­tain bucol­ic dec­ad­ence, they will also help line the stom­achs of those enjoy­ing a few quiet post-work pints.

With this and The Bresolin, the last of the dis­placed bypass build­ings have finally become occu­pied, eight long and des­ol­ate years after the dreaded road carved through Te Aro’s heart. Upper Cuba St and Wil­lis St are finally return­ing to a semb­lance of urb­an life, but Arthur St has not improved much since our ven­er­able col­league Alf trekked past four years ago, when all he saw was “‘tem­por­ary’ gravel traps, segreg­ated sli­planes, Chinese canteens, light-indus­tri­al brothels”. The Temple of Taste is a beacon of life, beck­on­ing you to pause for a drink and com­pany rather than per­petu­at­ing the con­stant grind; the high­way always urging you onward. It still feels marooned among vacant lots and car­parks, but per­haps it will inspire oth­ers to turn these left-over spaces into some­thing worth stop­ping for.