Since Two Hungry Mums published this, Monzu has closed shop. We keep this here as an ode to a fabulous restaurant.

I like perusing a menu because it tells you a lot about a restaurant but for the second time in a month we ate at a restaurant with no such catalogue. Auckland, is this a trend?

Monzu is the kind of restaurant where you eat according to the whim of the chef and owner, and its website simply states the menu changes daily.

Two of Auckland’s top restaurant reviewers tend to eat at the same place within weeks of each other and it had been a year since they visited Monzu so it was time for Two Hungry Mums to enter the fray – well, this time One Hungry Mum and One Hangry Dad.

We were the only diners at 6.30pm on a Wednesday night, till another coulple arrived closer to 8pm and I don’t understand why the place isn’t packed, even midweek.

Italian food to someone who grew up in the 1980s means all kinds of kitchen kitch. When I was a kid, mum made lasagne by stirring squares of dried pasta with crinkled edges into mince with corn and peas. It’s no wonder real Italian food never ceases to amaze me.

Diners at Monzu occupy the same tables and seats as those at Merediths on Dominion Rd. Not much has changed in the decor since Gaetano Spinosa took over the establishment more than a year ago except the addition of some black and white family photos on the wall.

Stiff decor aside, Spinosa commands the restaurant and offers a welcome that sets the scene. “Are you aware we are no longer a la cartè we offer a four-course degustation and you leave it to me?” Si, Monzu.

It makes sense that the a la cartè menu is gone, given how pointless it must be for a chef who doesn’t really want diners to choose their meal. At Monzu, it’s better to leave it to Spinosa. That said, we did get to choose one dish – 10-hour slow cooked beef rump or marinated raw snapper head and cauliflower both with handmade pasta (or a vegetarian dish he said was very vegetarian and obviously didn’t want us to choose).

With each dish we were treated to a description of what his mother used to make at home, and how he has taken the idea and made it new. That beef rump was a two-day slow cook back home in Napoli.

We started with a burrata surrounded by a moat of chilled melon soup (I’m sure he called it something else but there’s no menu to refer to). We tried to attack this with a spoon and Spinosa quickly appeared at our table advising us to cut open the cheese with knife and fork and let the melon and cheese mingle because that would balance the mouthful. He was right.

Honestly, it’s a breath of fresh air to have an Italian advise you on the best approach. We used a deepfried bread to mop up the plates (Spinosa’s recommendation) then licked our fingers.

It was followed with an eggplant parmiagiana with a Clevedon buffalo mozerella sauce and crispy zuccini slices on top, then our mains which we tucked into with gusto – the pasta cooked al dente and full flavours washed down with a glass of Italian wine from the south that you can’t get anywhere else in New Zealand.

Unlike our last dining experience, and much to our relief, there was dessert. A traditional almond chocolate cake, with a limoncello concoction on top and strawberry and tamarillo ice-cream. Summer on a plate.

I can’t express how grateful I was to receive a drop of Limoncello in a glass to finish off the meal. Feeling full, it was just the digestive we needed.

Leaving Monzu we felt like we’d been treated to a special night out. And all for just $65 plus drinks. For a degustation that changes daily that’s cheap and we couldn’t help wondering how the place is surviving. We’d happily pay more.

We didn’t mind the quiet dining room, having left three children at home, but this restaurant deserves to be bustling and will be on our go-to list for Dominion Rd.

Monzu

365 Dominion Rd, Mt Eden