Bar Celeste
“Bistro or bistrot: in its original Parisian incarnation, is a small restaurant serving moderately priced meals in a modest setting with alcohol.”
During the times I’ve visited Paris, I never had the budget to be able to dine at the restaurants that made French food famous: white starched tablecloths, waiters in penguin suits, and Michelin stars. My experience of the food from the more casual bistro was always lukewarm and mediocre. A lightly scrambled crème brulee here, and duck so overcooked its dark flesh had become shrunken and almost jerky-esque there. When I tried to explain to my friend Sigourney that Bar Celeste touts itself as a ‘neo-bistro’, the first question she asked was ‘what even is a neo-bistro?’ Good question.
The neo-bistro or bistronomy movement was started and perpetuated by Parisian hospitality rebels wanting to offer the relaxed and more accessible atmosphere of a bistro but without the badly cooked food. Bistronomic cuisine is that beautiful mid-way point between fine-dining and meh.
Bar Celeste is right at home on K’Rd, a street fast becoming the home of the restaurants to visit. It is a cosy, narrow space with a couple of benches outside (one of which seems to be permanently occupied by Albert Cho of Eat Lit Food and co.). The vibe is a little rustic, with mis-matched colours on their wood-panelled walls and exposed brick. We were seated next to their wee open kitchen which does a surprising job of turning out food quickly given the busyness of the place. In the short time they have been open, Bar Celeste’s menu has changed several times over. What one may get in January, one may no longer be able to find in February.
There are however some menu-stalwarts that have lasted the test of time so far. One of them is the whole flounder in beurre noisette (that’s brown butter to you) with lemon and capers. The other is the carottes rapées with dill and pistachios. As you will notice, a number of the dishes are French, but they do many other dishes decidedly less so; think roasted fennel with tahini and fried chickpeas, or trevally cru with Sichuan oil, fermented chilli and tomato. Sigourney and I love ourselves a whole flounder and ordered a medium (350g) to share. At the recommendation of our waitress, we also ordered their famous pommes paillasson. Sigourney was sceptical when I insisted on the carottes rapées, especially after she googled a picture of it. It is in fact a grated carrot salad, enlivened with finely chopped pistachios, parsley and dill, making it lightly sweet and perfumed, and a refreshing reprieve from a meal that would otherwise be dominated by butter and more butter.
We ordered a number of small shared plates to start with, however our small table quickly became inundated as the dishes arrived thick and fast one after the other. The Ortiz anchovies with cold butter and toast came simply as is, the small slivers of salty fish laid out on a plate with a piece of cool sourdough toast covered in slabs of thinly sliced butter. This little dish was a study in textures: the crunchy toast, the lush butter and silky oil dripping off the anchovies, and the anchovies themselves plump, salty and juicy. It’s not much to look at but goes so well with a tipple. We each had a glass of the Franco Terpin ‘Quinto Quarto’. Made with pinot grigio grapes, this almost red-coloured wine looks this way from skin-contact and had a lovely orangey twang and subtle bitterness without the fermented funk of a lot of other natural wines I have tried (and also disliked). I love guanciale, as much for its taste as the way its name sounds as it rolls off the tongue. ‘Gwan-cha-lay’. The heritage pig guanciale was sliced paper thin and laid out on a plate unfussily with a smear of hot, sweet pepper relish.
Mid-way through our meal, as we turned our attentions to the whole flounder that lay before us, it became apparent that there was a lot of tangy brown buttery-goodness to soak up and no bread to do it with, so we added on a bag of sourdough (baked by their neighbours Fort Greene) with seaweed butter. The flounder was beautifully cooked, dripping in its own buttery juices intermingled with the vinegary capers and chopped parsley which added some fresh notes. What a pleasure it was to be able to slide piece after piece of perfectly cooked fish off the bone, and with a silver fish knife no less which was a nice detail. Their legendary pommes paillasson, a golden disc of unbelievably crisp fried grated potato topped with finely chopped chives and a dollop of crème fraiche, was so indulgent it tipped me over into almost queasy. Fried potatoes in all its iterations is a personal weakness of mine and Bar Celeste’s pommes paillasson will go down in memory as one of the best.
It is safe to say after all that, there was no room for the ganache au chocolat, new olive oil and fleur de sel. Sigourney and I actually stopped off at Duck Island on the way home for their palate cleansing brambleberry ice cream in a vain attempt to cancel out some of the butter we’d consumed without skipping out on dessert. Bar Celeste is a brilliant wee place serving food made with absolute love, and if you’re that way inclined, natural wines to go with. Make a date to go now.
Bar Celeste
146B Karangahape Road
Auckland CBD
Ph. 022 681 8251