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site by Jeremy O'Brien |
Highest culinary standard in beef and lamb |
2006 |
2007 |
Restaurant of the year award for the Wairarapa - Micheal Guy's Eating Out 2006 |
Wairarapa est Wine Bar & eatery Cosy & glorious This is a cosy little restaurant with a main dining area that seats around 30, but in summer you can sit outside in the courtyard. The night we dined here the warmth from the open fireplace kept us snug. There are two sofas by the fire, rather strange modern paintings adorn the walls, and the overall atmosphere is very pleasant. We were very impressed with the wine list, including the Pinot Noir for which the Wairarapa is renowned, and special wines "from the vault". To start we enjoyed the Goats cheese with sweet pepper and aubergine terrine with sun-dried tomato pesto ($14), and the twice baked Kikorangi blue souffle on walnut salad ($14). Mains of Lamb fillet and mint couscous with ratatouille ($24), and Venison on pommes Anna with wilted spinach and caramelised strawberry jus ($25) were exquisite. So too was the Cardamom creme brulee with orange segments ($12). For food, service, ambience and price we gave it a 9/10 rating. 8 Memorial Square, (06) 306-9665. www.est.org.nz |
Where to Eat For such a small place, Martinborough is very sophisticated in the eating department. Smack dab in the middle of town is the very swish Martinborough Hotel. Renovated only recently, the front bar is a great place to meet the locals (everybody drinks there), while the dining room out back offers fairly serious restaurant fare that is especially popular with big eaters (the servings are huge). The rooms upstairs offer very comfortable accommodation and at the rear are motel-style units. Right across the road is Est, Martinborough's first wine bar. Stepping into Est, set up by industry veterans Jeremy O'Brien and Natasha Hancock, you swear you hadn't left the city. It's stylish, comfortable and very professional, I just wish I had more time during my visit to give the extensive wine list (many available by the glass) and terrific mod NZ food a good workout. Definitely a must-visit. |
Divine Magazine |
Wine bar& eatery Est wine Bar & Eatery, situated in the 19th century post office building on Martinborough Square, opened only last December and is already popular with locals and especially with visitors who stay in the colonial cottages which surround the square. Owners Jeremy O'Brien and Natasha Hancock have gained their experience in the hospitality industry in restaurants, bars and functions management. "We wanted to create a comfortable environment which made our patrons feel at ease" says Natasha. Breakfast and lunch patrons tend to head for one of two courtyards, either along the front of the building beside the square or at the back, where there are high walls and overhanging trees. In the wine bar bottles are displayed in a 1920's bookshelf and the lounge has bankettes and an open fireplace. A small function room is sited in the original postmans quarters. The simple menu emphasizes local regional produce with smaller dishes that can be combined or shared by guests. Faced with so many good local wines, est's owners decided to list a different 10 each month. Another popular decision, especially with Wairarapa winemakers, who like to compare styles, is to carry a selection of New Zealand wines from other areas and to stock overseas wines. Est hosts wine tastings conducted by local wine makers. Est, The Square, Martinborough is open from Wednesday to Sunday. Phone (06 306 9665), email est@ihug.co.nz. |
The Wellington Guide Magazine |
Winestate Magazine |
Est is best Dave Smith drops wholeheartedly into Martinborough's Est Restaurant & Bar and discovers the culinary riches of country life Photos by Frank Warner It's takes a certain amount of self confidence to set up a restaurant in the Wairarapa and call it Est - especially when it is sited in what used to be the durable old Martinborough post office, the less abstruse name used by the somewhat more earnest preceding eating establishment, But that is precisely what chef Jeremy (by way of London and Ponsonby) and partner Natasha have done, it is an indicator of their entire approach to restaurant style, Put briefly, Est is the Latin tag for "it is" and harks back to the German folklore tale of a bishop who, enroute to Rome, sent out scouts to locate those inns with the best wine, They were to chalk the word "est" on the outside of the better watering holes, At Montefiascone, the scout chalked the word there in triplicate, When the bishop called in, he forthwith decided to give Rome a miss and set up shop drinking the thrice-lauded wine till he popped his clogs, Nice story. Ironically, the night we dined at Est we were in a bit of rush to get moving no matter how many Est signs there were on the outside wall, Our gracious hosts took that as no sort to slight and quickly set to, installing us on a copious couch before a roaring fire, The rest went like clockwork. So there we both were, knocking back some good cream sherry, when our no-nonsense but discreet first waitress rolled up to take the food and wine order. We were enjoined to have our entrees right where we sat if we wanted. Nope, we would do the whole thing at the nearby corner table where the heat of the fire would reach our backs and where conversation could take place in snug intimacy. With every visit to the table, a new item of piping hot food would arrive with a pertinent comment to help us along. The courses moved effortlessly into each other. My soup of the day was parsnip and apple. It defined the word subtle. Had I been blindfolded and asked what the soup was, I would have put my hand up for parsnip, but there was clearly something else in there and after several spoonfuls the penny finally dropped. For mains, I clipped my medical card that allows me five fillet steaks a year and was extra glad I did. It was the freshest, hunkiest and tastiest fillet I've had in many a long year - none of that "same old, same old" that haunts Steakland. It was glazed with a goat's cheese fondant served on wilted spinach atop pomme anna: a food island in a suitably generous hot red wine jus lake. The vegetables more than salved my conscience about ordering the meat, and I added rosemary and thyme, roasted potatoes, which, in turn, bore that hallmark offreshness and vitality running through the whole meal. There are some real benefits in eating out in the country. The quality of the meat, vegetables and fruit seem to be just one of them. Across the table, a concoction of chickpea, chili, feta and garlic salad with sautéed baby vegetable in puffed pastry cases, mushroom and tarragon sauce with turned potatoes met with impressed approval. Eschewing the "all bells and whistles" of steak and sauces, my wife mentioned with appreciation the originality of the dish. In the wine stakes we were beautifully catered for with glasses of Walnut Ridge pinot noir 2004 and a Stone Cutter pinot gris. These are both Martinborough wines (the first being from Ata Rangi), but we noticed that the wine list was full, but not flashily over-full, of wines from all major New Zealand regions. Est exudes an air of both confidence and good sense rooted in solid Kiwi values; right down to making Veuve C!icquot available to passing punters, but in small single bottles that fit nicely with average purses. No attempt is made to bowl us over with what for many would be unaffainable excess. By dessert time we were as mellow as time constraints would allow and certainly well lubricated/fortified for the later evening events. We took extra time, though, to luxuriate our way through two top-notch "alters". Mine was a brioche bread and butter pudding infused with calvados and rum with a clever trio of sauces. Again, the central integrity of the product shone beaconlike, hot and with a firm consistency, out of which the total dish seemed somehow to gently unfold on the plate. The Affagato ice cream with espresso and Drambuie was another example of this. Reviewers struggle to impart in mere words to a non-eating reader the joy of sampling a special dish. All we can say is, go and try these for yourself. Est is a finely conceived restaurant that knows what it wants to achieve without aiming to create an overblown fine dining outpost in our rural heartland. For the traveller or resident in the Wairarapa it can deliver urbane wit, style, unimpeachable quality and down-to-earth food satisfaction light years beyond mere comfort food - all in welcoming yet intimate surroundings. That is quite an achievement and one that is the result of smart thinking plus the grinding hard work that lies behind anything that looks "effortless". And that older guy over by the window eating by himself? He certainly looked like a bishop to me. |
"THERE ARE SOME REAL BENEFITS IN EATING OUT IN THE COUNTRY. THE QUALITY OF THE MEAT, VEGETABLES AND FRUIT SEEM TO BE JUST ONE OF THEM" |
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2004 Est Restaurant-Martinborough We arrived in Martinborough and after realizing it was 8:30pm, we raced into town to seek out dinner. After reading the menu at Est we walked in to inquire about dinner-luckily they offered us a table if we could wait for half an hour. We sat at their comfortable leather sofa and drank wine (I had a Walnut Ridge Pinot Noir) while perusing our new favorite Cuisine Magazine. The host (who we later learned was the owner) was crazed. It's exam time, so she was covering for missing staff members who were students. We were so glad we stayed, as the food was stellar. I had a goat cheese entree, atop a brioche and topped with pears that had been marinated in mulled wine. For my main I had a spinach ricotta ravioli atop stewed veggies-carrots, fennel, squash. It all tasted very fresh and the ravioli must have been homemade. For dessert we had a cinnamon brulee with some crispy apple (ala dried apple). It was reminiscent of mom's custard topped with nutmeg. Very good! Brian had a salmon entree and a pork loin for his main. One of the main reasons (besides the great looking menu) we wanted to eat there was that they're only open Wednesday through Sunday for dinner and we leave Wednesday. We're noticing that Monday and Tuesday are pretty dead in town, so we'll have to plan meals and tastings accordingly. |
The Sydney Herald |
2008 |