No oval of mashed chickpeas in Auckland has received more romantic confessions from patrons - "I love you more than any other chick(pea) I've had" - than Gemmayze Street's Hummus.
Lovely sculpted presentation heralds the dish - it sports rounded smoothness, as if a potter were finessing it on a spinning wheel. Just the looks of this appetizer, along with the reputation of the restaurant, often packed with patrons despite what is the third year of a dispiriting anaemic economy in Auckland and New Zealand, created high expectations in line with the accolades this unassuming place has received.
Few restaurants in Auckland can rival Gemmayze Street's visionary line-up of no less than ten vegetarian appetizers that open the lush, brilliant drapes of this veil-billowing kitchen.
This Lebanese place in Auckland CBD has pleasant points of departure from the conservative nature of other Middle Eastern restaurants. Servers are young ladies clad in slim modern black - elegant gym wear that lends a sprightly youthful spirit to the floor. The drinks list is decent - but more importantly, a rare complement for you to enjoy alongside the Middle Eastern victuals.
The ambience is no big shakes - most of the seating area takes up the back of a yesteryear mall space with high ceilings, communicating with the rest of the semi-al-fresco 80s vibes floating around. The more private, 'indoor' seating area, near the kitchen, has better ambience with orange-travertine colour walls festooned with framed family photos and purple cushioned seating along the wall.
Those just wandering around who have not yet made up their minds to dine here, may have their attention riveted by the small and fashionably dark but packed-with-customers Pici which rules the roost before you walk deeper into the ground floor arcade. The book shops here - some of the last places on the planet which used to sell Sidney Sheldon's early to mid-career masterpieces,besides other niceties like a large coffee table book featuring Humphrey Bogart on the cover, not to mention an edition of Thackeray's 'Barry Lyndon', are now gone with the wind.
Prices, especially of some of the appetizers, are very reasonable. Starters revolve around $20, the mains $35.
Ossem lu'eh - three styles of potato - is one of Auckland's best potato dishes, with a triptych of technique that would make a French chef proud. Hunks of potato would be a nightmare but here it is a dream of softness through superior roasting, napped in a sauce of potato veloute, with powdered bits of fried potato on top, like crunchy yeast.
Coming back to that famous hummus, its butteriness and intensity is undeniable, alas it is too salty, although the paprika oil and fried peas are a superb touch. High quality pide (bread) with the hummus subtracts its saltiness, but also detracts from the pure hummus taste.
Roasted golden beetroot 'shmander', bathed in orange jus, was a perfect bridge betwixt soft and crisp, its blended taste making it adeptly embody both vegetable and fruit. Pairing it with assertive labneh was a minor misfire, the heavy dairy better substituted by something lighter and more perfumed. 'Pumpkin and roasted butternut' was even better - featuring a gorgeous fluffy pumpkin 'cutlet' - the pumpkin rendered silken soft, its exterior fried to a delicate crisp, and sporting a wonderful, subtle spice coating akin to that of an onion pakoda. Roasted butternut puree of refined flavour completed the dish.
My server on the very first visit was a wonderful nymph, but her shift ended at 8-15 pm and she went off donning her puffed black jacket, sending my service down the drain in more ways than one. In general, the service here plain goofs off, undeserving of the standards of a good restaurant.
I was thrilled to see the lush ingredient of white asparagus on the menu, and four stalks of it came blanketed by fried sujuk (sausage) on a bed of basil mayo. It was tender and crisp - a beautiful example of an elegantly textured, sleek vegetable, alas its inherent flavour was too hushed, with the plate's fiesta of flavours generating little cohesive joy. Fried eggplant came in crisp chunks slick with caramelization - a technically proficient execution tasty in a generic way without really heralding the complex haunting depth of said vegetable, the tahini yoghurt doing little to build the harmony.
What became clear by this juncture is that the place desperately needs an artful manager who can introduce the idea of hospitality to the by-the-numbers team that soullessly runs the floor. The generous line-up of appetizers which can often disclose the brilliance of the kitchen, simply has no equal in the thoroughly mediocre service team. Merely dressing young shapely girls in petite black and sending them out is not enough. You, along with other things like uncleared plates, can often wait a long time to catch their attention. Service here is the biggest factor that downs the overall experience.
On a Tuesday evening, I was one of the last patrons left at the end of the meal, and the crowd was noticeably thin as it is in most of Auckland's restaurants on a Tuesday. They started stacking up all the chairs, and I was left staring at the upside down chairs in front of me - an unseemly sight for a restaurant that won the city's top award last year.
But, when the going is good, you may be forgiven for thinking that no wonder Gemmayze Street was the 2024 Supreme Winner of Viva NZ Herald Awards - the "Fetteh djej" chicken thigh is by far amongst the best I've had not just in Auckland but anywhere in the world, surpassingly tender, its sheer freshness speaking for its flavour. I had asked for a reduced portion due to multiple dishes tasted in one sitting, but even this subtracted size sported multiplied flavour. Perfect accompaniments include pine nuts, yoghurt sauce and the toasted crunch of brown butter flakes.
To bring one back to dreary earth, or more precisely under water, the seafood main of ordinary snapper was one I've wanly experienced a thousand times in the past. The technically proficient but mostly muted fillet (why even bother with expensive but tasteless snapper?) and a very tart, one-dimensional chicken shish sauce, was puzzling, as though it had come from a different kitchen, especially considering the spectacular chicken main course that stunned the previous occasion. A separate side-bowl of biryani-like flavoured rice with caramelized onion had more flavour but this Asian side-dish did not pair well with the European plate, adding incongruity to mediocrity.
The only vegetarian main course was potato and chard dumplings, and on my third visit my companion, disappointingly, was not keen to try this, leaving me ill-equipped to consume it on my own besides being unable to report to you how it was. I felt compelled to again try the chicken main course, this time in full size, but on this occasion it was merely good rather than transcendent, making the accoutrements seem very un-inspired, besides casting doubt on the kitchen's consistency across meals, even with their star main courses.
The $20 chocolate mousse with hazelnut cream was a stodgy misfire lacking taste and texture, easily eclipsed by the $10 Kyoho Grape sorbet which is the best grape dessert I've had anywhere. Presented in a long-stemmed stainless steel cup, you'd think the purple orb in the middle is the grape sorbet, with white creamy elements above and below. Actually the grape flavour is daringly infused in all three layers - toasted white meringue on top has grape coursing through it, the central purple orb is grape jam which is over-ripe but still heavy with flavour and right at the bottom what looks like plain custard is grape ice-cream which has a brilliant chilled throb of rich grape. Just sell this in a jar and it will sell better than Gemmayze Street's store-sold hummus.
The much-anticipated "Knefe" - a nicely circular disc of kataifi pastry enclosing baked ricotta, was a rich dense mouthful, packing a perfume alright, but the scent being a heavy indistinct one rather than the bewitching zephyr that modern Middle Eastern desserts can send wafting forth on the palate. A shapely quenelle of orange and vanilla ice cream on top had subtle grace notes on its own, but could not create a greater whole with the disc underneath.
The third visit thus was considerably more sobering than the first two despite the fact that we had the best seats in the house, further tempered by a passable ambience and strictly average service which often dipped into absenteeism while never ascending into excellence. More than ensuring a more fetching line-up of main courses, Gemmayze Street will need the profoundly human touch of superior service if it is to be counted anywhere near the galaxy of top-tier restaurants.
Gemmayzestreet.co.nz Shop 16, St Kevin’s Arcade, 183 Karangahape Rd
U. Prashanth Nayak for Chow Luck Club
***This is the writer’s personal observation and is not an endorsement by Chow Luck Club or chowluckclub.com
