Last year, for the sec­ond time in a row, Team Welling­ton­ista won the Web­stock Pub Quiz (we intend to win it this year too, by the way). Our prize was a $300 tab for Lager­field at 21 Blair Street. Hav­ing been there late at night when it was full of munters, I was not over­whelmed with enthu­si­asm, but as it turns out, it was a love­ly expe­ri­ence. 

On a hor­ri­bly rainy night, perch­ing at a high ban­quette table under a heater was a good place to be, espe­cial­ly as the love­ly staff told us to let them know if it got too hot. The cir­cu­lar booths that were a key fea­ture of The Last Sup­per Club may be gone, but the wavey ceil­ing remains to make the space more inter­est­ing, with dark wood adding to the warmth. It’s a shame that there were TVs on, fea­tur­ing polo, and the music was from the ’80s, but not unbear­ably so, espe­cial­ly after a lit­tle wine.

We start­ed on a bot­tle of Akarua Rose ($40), and an OldRoar­ing Meg Pinot Noir ($55), we hap­pi­ly dis­cov­ered an St. Hal­let’s Game­keep­er’s Shi­raz which at $35 was one of the cheap­est on the list, but was ful­ly flavoured and yum, and so we got through quite a few bot­tles after that. It made for very hap­py mouth­fuls when paired with the blue cheese and crispy proscuit­to entree ($12). Fries and gravy weren’t amaz­ing, but the Drinkers’ Plat­ter of dumplings, prawns, spring rolls, samosas, bread and four dips at $15 was excep­tion­al val­ue. The cheese gratin was a sol­id hot­pot in which to dip crusty bread, and I’m told that the chick­en liv­er par­fait was very tasty too.

Through­out our cou­ple of hours, we were plied with water, clean glass­es and were attend­ed to very well — the ser­vice was so good that we even tipped. They seemed to have changed their menu in the last week since we vis­it­ed, but I’m con­fi­dent that the food will con­tin­ue to be of a good stan­dard. If you’re not fond of Fri­day night crowds on Courte­nay Place, you may want to vis­it ear­li­er in the day and week, but we have no hes­i­ta­tions in rec­om­mend­ing Lager­field as a place to drink after work.