A seat at the table: Twenty Seven Steps

On Saturday evening in Christchurch we headed over to New Regent Street, a really pretty terraced street. The precinct, opened by the Mayor of Christchurch in 1932, has small shops, cafes and restaurants and is built in Spanish Mission Revival style. New Regent Street was the only remaining heritage streetscape in Christchurch after the February 2011 earthquake, and owners and tenants worked together to restore the buildings. The buildings in the street are listed as Category I heritage buildings by Heritage New Zealand.

We started the evening with a drink at The Institution, a tiny little upstairs bar with a wonderful array of beers, wines and cocktails. From there we headed next door to Twenty Seven Steps, also situated upstairs.

There was a good list of specials, and we decided to share the duck live parfait with a sort of pickled fennel and capers, and really good still hot toast.

We had a sauvignon blanc with our first course and a red from Hawke’s Bay…but I did not write down exactly what we had which was very remiss of me!

For my main dish, I had the Tai Tapu venison tenderloin with braised potatoes, chestnut puree, spring vegetables and a sloe gin and plum jus. This was wonderful…melt in the mouth meat, lovely tastes all round. Karl opted for the aged Canterbury 200g beef fillet with duck fat potato fondant, spring vegetables, pink peppercorn and horseradish butter and turmeric and buttermilk onion rings. This got a big thumbs up and rating of 5 out of 5.

Neither of us unfortunately had room for dessert, which was a pity as there were some really interesting things on the menu. We will just have to go back again next time we are in Christchurch!

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