returned back to my old home (and favourite city!) wellington for a few days so decided to try out a new-ish eatery in the city after hearing lots of great reviews.
an interesting space; located inside an old bank building, the restaurant was nice but lacked that high end ambience probably due to the windows being open (it was a cold night) and no candles or anything to make it feel warm and intimate.
service seemed a bit hit and miss from the get go. we were given menus (but not explained the specials, fish of the day etc) and had our drinks order taken after ourfoodorder. seemed disjointed and a bit disorganised - i also noticed that there were probably double the staff to customer ratio despite our earlier dining time. still, staff were pleasant and happy to help.
i ordered the scotch fillet - rare, with cafe de paris butter. as it came as meat only, i selected a separate side of brussel sprouts which came with ginger/maple glaze and bacon.
when thefoodarrived, i was instantly pleased that the chef had cooked the steak rare - and perfectly. so many times i find that perfect rare steak illusive. it always seems medium or the opposite, borderline blue. the steak at cn was perfectly rare and delicious. the cafe de paris butter however, was disappointing. the flavour of curry powder was so overpowering that i ended up scraping it off - what should have been a nice complement just didn't work.
the sprouts were pleasant - not as good as the depot (auckland) sprout dish but tasty. i didn't get much taste of the maple or ginger but it was a good side accompaniment to the steak.
my disappointment however would be that for a steak at $38 and a side at $7-9 - at a total of $47 for a main, every element should be perfectly executed and delightful including top notch service, ambience and even perhaps serve bread/butter beforehand like many high end establishments do.
cn fell slightly short in my expectations due to this - nice, but for that price needs to do a little more. bravo on the perfectly cooked steak though!