I’ve lived in cen­tral Welling­ton for more than five years and had no idea there was a hotel on The Ter­race behind Willis Street, nes­tled just over a dark res­i­den­tial hill. The more you know. 

A few weeks back, I got to sam­ple the WOAP fes­ti­val menu of the hotel restau­rant, For­age Kitchen + Bar, along with oth­er food enthu­si­asts, insta­gram­mers (my phone is old so you’ll have to use your imag­i­na­tion here), etc. We were greet­ed with an offer of kawakawa tea and bis­cuits in the lob­by before being escort­ed to the restau­rant, where we were fur­ther plied with drinks and nib­bles. I don’t know if the dumplings or pork bel­ly are on the full menu some­where, but I would def­i­nite­ly go back just to eat (anoth­er) tray of that pork. 

After eat­ing [redact­ed] slices of pork bel­ly, it was time for the actu­al meal. (For­tu­nate­ly, I am always wear­ing my eat­ing pants.) My date and I, in the inter­ests of sci­ence, had agreed to order dif­fer­ent­ly so we could try every­thing (you’re wel­come). The entree was a dead heat — both the crab and salmon roulade and feta and caramelised onion tart were excel­lent. Beau­ti­ful bal­ance of rich­ness (seafood or feta) with a bit of tang (cit­rus or bal­sam­ic) to cut through it. The roulade might nar­row­ly eke out a win on pre­sen­ta­tion, but it’s hard to com­pete with colour­ful spi­rals, so no dis­re­spect to the tart. 

When we got to the mains, how­ev­er, our plan failed us. There was a sur­prise fish option! With bonus gnoc­chi! Pan roast­ed mar­ket fish with agria gnoc­chi, brown but­ter, and fried kale. (it’s still not list­ed on the WOAP web­site either, so for your sake I real­ly hope they’re serv­ing it dur­ing the fes­ti­val). My date stayed true to the chick­en and quail medal­lions, while I aban­doned the risot­to in favour of the fish. About two thirds of the table also went with the fish (this becomes rel­e­vant lat­er). 

The medal­lions turned out to be some­where between a meat­ball and a paté in tex­ture and form. The mush­room risot­to and brandy jus added a rich­ness that you typ­i­cal­ly don’t get from poul­try — it’s a fit­ting win­ter dish but was a bit of a mis­sion to fin­ish after all the pre-din­ner pork bel­ly. My date usu­al­ly hates mush­rooms but devoured the ‘brandy-bat­tered nee­dle mush­rooms,’ fur­ther evi­dence in sup­port of my patent­ed ‘soak it in booze and fry it’ the­o­ry of cook­ing. I man­aged to steal one and can con­firm their deli­cious­ness. (A big bowl of those would make a great starter, if any­one from For­age is read­ing this.)

The fish dish is the real star though, so you should get that. Mar­ket fish that day was snap­per, but one of our table mates turned out to have been a fish­mon­ger, and noticed that my fish looked very dif­fer­ent to hers. We swapped bites and con­firmed dis­tinct (and deli­cious) tex­tures. When we asked the staff, they assured us it was all snap­per, but dif­fer­ent cuts. The fish­mon­ger and I remain skep­ti­cal — we the­o­rised that they may have under­es­ti­mat­ed the pop­u­lar­i­ty of the snap­per and had to bring in a back­up, but both were evi­dence to the chef’s skill. The accom­pa­ny­ing gnoc­chi were delight­ful­ly del­i­cate and fluffy, and it’s an estab­lished fact that brown but­ter makes every­thing bet­ter — all in all, a clear win­ner. 

In the dessert con­test, the Ota­ki berry semi­fred­do emerged vic­to­ri­ous. The dehy­drat­ed orange gar­nish are addic­tive and I would have hap­pi­ly eat­en a bowl of them. The choco­late tart’s pas­try was unfor­tu­nate­ly a bit aver­age and let down the tasty fill­ing and chan­til­ly. But the wiz­ard hat (you’ll know it when you see it) with the choco­late tart turned out to be a thin shell filled with a rich, creamy choco­late mousse, and the four of us on the end of the table liked it so much we (now many wines deep) asked the wait staff if we could have anoth­er. To their cred­it, although we’d already been annoy­ing about the fish (I promise we liked both and weren’t mad about the switch!), they brought a cou­ple more out on a plate. A+ ser­vice. (in ret­ro­spect, maybe don’t actu­al­ly ask a restau­rant to bring you a plate of extra gar­nish­es, though.)

No one at the table got the veg­e­tar­i­an option (grilled veg­eta­bles with pearl bar­ley risot­to) , but if the mush­room risot­to with the chick­en is any­thing to go by, it’s prob­a­bly pret­ty good. 

The staff were love­ly and the ser­vice beau­ti­ful­ly atten­tive, espe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing we were a table of 20+ peo­ple. My wine glass was effi­cient­ly refilled seem­ing­ly every time I turned my back, so I didn’t get to actu­al­ly try the beer pair­ing (For­tune Favours The Nat­u­ral­ist unfil­tered pale ale) until we’d made it to dessert. It’s a good beer though, so it would pair nice­ly with most food. 

If you’re keen to ven­ture off the beat­en track and impress your date with your knowl­edge of hid­den restau­rants, For­age is a good bet. The din­ing room is cosy, and there are a hand­ful of tables nes­tled into lit­tle alcoves next to the floor-to-ceil­ing win­dows, so you can enjoy a roman­tic semi-pri­vate view of the city at night (if you book ear­ly, I assume). 

For­age Kitchen + Bar’s fes­ti­val menu is on dur­ing Welling­ton on a Plate from 10 ‑26 August. Shock­ing­ly, they do not appear to have a burg­er, which I respect. For­age does­n’t feel like a burg­er restau­rant, and props to them for not jump­ing on the band­wag­on just because they can.

(PS. Shame­less plug alert! If you need some­thing to do between meals dur­ing WOAP, Naked Girls Read­ing: Food Edi­tion on 18 August at 8 PM is exact­ly what it sounds like, and is a load of fun. Come watch me and some oth­er sassy women rant about food, body pol­i­tics, cook­ing, and the patri­archy.)