Boulcott Street Bistro & Winebar
David Burton
$$$
99 Boulcott St
Wellington
Ph: 04-499 4199
Licensed b
Open: Lunch Mon-Fri; dinner Mon-Sat
Cuisine rating: Eat: 8 Drink: 8 Look: 8 Care: 8
In France, the Boulcott would rate as a Michelin-starred restaurant, but it calls itself a bistro, probably because modern New Zealanders have developed such a loathing for formality. Bookings are taken for lunch but not for dinner, a strategy a cynic might suggest is aimed at getting customers to spend money at the bar while waiting for a table. But a busy bar is vital to the party atmosphere here, and the chatter and laughter are accentuated all the more by the tiny proportions of this fairy-tale carpenter’s Gothic cottage, built in 1870.
The waiting staff may ask you how your day has been and comment on the weather, but underlying the conviviality is strict observance of service protocol, such as the placement of cutlery, filling of water glasses and moving behind the customers to serve and clear.
It’s the same with the food, which is distinctly unbistro-like. Certainly they have lamb shanks with mash and minted peas, and fillet béarnaise with pommes frites, but these have been on the menu forever, to satisfy the ‘suits’ who won’t let them go.
For the most part, it’s haute cuisine: capretto (young goat) is first slow roasted, then picked off the bone, wrapped with prosciutto into geometrically perfect rounds, browned and served over couscous with olives and garlic confit. Fresh scampi are enclosed in tortellini and served with a concentrated bisque.
I have dined here dozens of times and never yet had a piece of fish that wasn’t glisteningly fresh and perfectly cooked. Desserts are visually sculptural, and even better to eat. The wine list offers more than 70 choices, with a further 73 in the cellar selection.
The Boulcott Street Bistro has been here since 1991 but, in the talented hands of owners Chris Green and John Lawrence and chef John Allred, it’s now much more than an industry survivor – it’s a Wellington icon.
February 2004
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