BRACU :  2024  RESTAURANT REVIEW 
3 STARS / 5 (with very pampering service tilting the balance)
BOMBAY, AUCKLAND REGION
VISITED AUGUST 2024
 
Nouvelle cuisine haven in a beautiful countryside setting - that's how Bracu is ensconced in the hollows and dells of one's memory, with close friends sharing the special cache the restaurant occupies. A decade of visits, the last one a full seven years ago in 2017, has created strong nostalgia, especially in light of many Auckland stalwarts moving shop or shipping out for good. Had anything at all changed in this restaurant that occupies centre-space in the olive estate of owner Ivan Simunovich ? When news of a  truffle dinner in the thick of winter waltzed in, I jumped for it. How come I had not visited my favourite joint for so long ? One can only surmise that the mind tricks one into thinking you're already there on evenings of imagined fireplace and sumptuous table. 
 
 
 
 
This was the first time visiting Bracu by night. A forty-five minute drive outside Auckland, then entering the charmingly named bucolic locality of Bombay and rolling into the estate of the fondly remembered establishment all took place in the chill of darkness, lights here and there. The grounds outside are dimly lit and still carry their romantic potential - this is a place deeply suited for couples, with its classic yet smart environs, elegant verdant expanse, the low slung canopy of the trees even by day providing the dapple of the night.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
I felt like a celebrity for the first time in New Zealand ! My dinner ticket (the restaurant had organized a third-party service for booking the truffle dinner) quite interestingly sported a 'upnworld' in capital letters next to my name although I had not given out my website name at all. From the beginning, my suit was complimented on, I was assiduously looked after, and half a dozen of the waitstaff diligently and periodically enquired after my every need, asking whether I was okay and needed anything else, more times than I can count ! It might have freaked out another punter, but my personal tolerance for such coddling is high and I lapped all of it in, sometimes just flashing a smile and nodding as I had already replied so many times before.   
 
I was seated in the verandah with at least eight other tables there (the interior space is fitted out like a cozy villa) but you wouldn't know it was winter thanks to the phalanx of wall-mounted heaters near the ceiling. The truffle dinner was  $165 - a very reasonable rate for a very expensive ingredient. The a la carte with its modern European bent has reasonable prices for a haute cuisine restaurant with appetizers in high twenties and mains at mid-forties (New Zealand Dollars).  
 
 
 
 
Hors D'oeuvres, comprising truffled potato espuma croustade, tempura oyster with truffle emulsion, and truffled cheese toastie were all moreish and I looked forward to some fine batting. The first full-scale presentation of the evening was not so much a curve-ball as it was a under-handed delivery. Truffled duck sausage was decidedly rustic, the flavour indistinct, the texture loosely bound and not particularly impressive, and the truffle essence somewhere far away either in Canterbury or Perigord. A slice of sourdough bread then appeared with a selection of five little olive oil bottles some flavoured with lemon, others with Italian spices. They even asked me which olive oil flavour I liked more.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Cavatelli pasta (the only time I've had this variety in NZ) was served with truffle and pecorino. The cavatelli shells nicely hold whatever flavour is added, and they certainly sported the pecorino flavour although I hope a chef will realize that pecorino is a definite umami taste by itself and that it would come in the way of the delicate truffle as it did here - I couldn't detect the latter flavour at all. 
 
 
 
 
Striking presentation marked the fish course, with nice contrasts of colour on a large circular plate, clam-like in its radial, ridged and mottled beauty. The fish fillet was neatly encased in an outer layer of cabbage and celeriac, mashed and moulded so adroitly that it was hard to distinguish it from the fish. The technical finesse here outshone the taste easily, even with the pairing of a custard-like fish mousse that was lightly cut with the flavour of spirits. Actual discs of shaved truffle were seen for the first time - I tasted one by itself - it had none of the smouldering aura, and its earthy tone graded into bitterness and an off-taste. This was a significant disappointment for what is supposed to be a luxury ingredient. Little boulders of caviar are hard to find even in top restaurants in NZ, foie gras is actually banned in NZ, and if the truffles you rarely get to savour in a short window in the year taste like this, that pretty much sounds the death knell for the elite trio of French luxury ingredients in Aotearoa. Truffles obviously cost a bomb, with a recent report saying that fresh white truffles in Italy cost 4500 euros per kilogram. This dinner was "only" $165 - while Auckland's top-rated Grove restaurant recently advertized a truffle dinner for $ 495, an offer I barely considered as their $  300 truffle dinner experienced by me in 2020 was very enjoyable but lacking the truffle blast that this heady ingredient can generate in its prime. I'm sorry to say the black truffles this evening were simply a wan shadow, and suboptimal sourcing would be the main culprit. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 The female waitstaff looked after me very well - I don't think I've ever had a service team in New Zealand so solicitously enquire after my welfare. The male waitstaff, not to be outdone, also came around many times to check on me. By a long shot (Bracu also offers shooting practice on the estate), this was the most diligent and solicitous service I've ever received in N.Z - if the food had measured up, this would have been a total knock-out experience. 
 
  I gladly admit I was unable to taste what would be the night's marquee dish - beef wellington which I glimpsed as an elegant expanse on other plates (as I abjured red meat eight years ago). The restaurant to its credit had clearly mentioned they would be unable to accomodate alterations as this is a set menu but on my prior request, the manager and I had agreed that I will have bread and butter instead for this course. On the actual evening though, they indulgently surprised me by offering artichoke soup with a fried sphere that when sliced, oozed egg yolk into the mix. I was full to the gills by the time I finished this ample quantity and it would be unfair of me to critique what is clearly a generous gesture. 
 
 
  In the past, Bracu offered very nice pre-desserts like sorbets - no such pleasant preambles feature now. The dessert, thankfully, rivaled the fish course in finished flavours - both boasting of competence and satisfaction, rather than brilliance and rapture. A bitter chocolate cylinder had reasonable intensity but if one were to nitpick, not the exquisite seduction of the very best marquise. A foam channeled cep mushroom flavour, complementing a vanilla ice cream that neatly folded in the flavour of truffle. But the ice cream was melting already, and the successful flavour combination was presented in miserly quantity which was in surprising contradistinction to the bounty of everything that came before. 
 
 
 
 
The level of cuisine here has significantly dipped compared to the days of the chefs in the previous decade. I was treated like a VIP so the pampering often distracted one from the underwhelming victuals. Bombay is actually less than an hour's drive from Auckland's periphery but with chefs tempted to so many ambitious places in Auckland, I would not envy Bracu's owner the onerous task of retaining top-tier chefs. Michael Newlands, Logan Clarke - these quality chefs have come and gone and there was another chef in the interim before the current one. The turn-over would not be helping - if you want to create a place like Troisgros or Le Pres d'Eugenie, the chef has to stay for a long time in order to really grow wings that can span a planet... The challenge going ahead for the owner is whether he can reprise Bracu's history of excellence in the hinterlands.
 
 
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