arc — Restaurant in Otago

Tried the october full set menu. Service was very friendly. Relaxed and intimate atmosphere. Most of the courses were excellent, with a couple criticisms in the remaining (extensive review below).

Review of food:

Beer bread, welsh rarebit butter (highly recommend) Taste and flavour was excellent and very moreish. A little smokey char on the bread would have elevated the taste and texture.

"Green eggs and ham" Taste, flavour and texture was nice. However the confit yolk tended to overpower the bearnaise. Just the bearnaise with tarragon powder and asparagus was amazing; the other elements took away from that just to stick to a theme.

Whitebait toast (highly recommend) Taste, flavour, texture were excellent and balanced. It reminded me of what I would ideally like takoyaki to taste like but always fails to achieve.

Steak and fries, charred cabbage (highly recommend) Cook on rare steak was perfect. Mushroom beurre blanc perfectly accompanied the steak. The texture of the fries was amazing, delicately crispy yet pillowy in the centre. The charred cabbage with burnt onion ranch was delicious and I almost scoffed it down before the steak. It also paired well with the rest of the dish. The pickled lions mane mushroom didn't feel necessary and could be ommitted.

Green apple sorbet (highly recommend) This is the embodiement of an ideal palate cleanser. It achieves an almost candly like green apple flavour, with a refined hit of booze.

Tarte au citron The tart itself was a delicious "tarte au citron" with a brulee top. However, the dish as a whole felt disjointed and unbalanced. The tart was sour and had a custardy texture....yet is balanced with sour poached rhubarb and creamy chantilly cream (i.e more of the same)? The meringue shards complemented the tart well but there wasnt nearly...

Very friendly service, the waiters here are excellent, nicest in town. We tried Kika and Arc back to back and I would say I like the Kika menu more. Kika has a wider variety of dishes you are able to order if you want to do a la carte. (It seems like at Arc they push you towards the omakase option as there are dishes you can't order a la carte). Overall the menu is much more limited at Arc than Kika. We did the "just feed me" at Kika but not at Arc so I can't make a comparison there. There were lots of fried dishes here which tasted delicious but may not be the healthiest. We thoroughly enjoyed the grilled mushrooms which comes atop the most delicious corn puree. The veal croquettes were a winner as well. Extremely tender inside which compliments their crispy shell. Their beer bread was delicious. The misses were the pork with beans (smoky flavor and not much else) and the oysters (not the best we've had on our trip) As you can see most of the dishes on the menu are very heavy. It would be great if they could add some fresh and light tasting dishes to break it up a bit. It's still a solid...

Great food and service change our lives, in big And little ways… and Let’s be clear: a lot of google reviews end up getting written by people who have not had enough great dining experiences in their lives

Those of you, like us, who have been bizarrely fortunate enough to have had many great meals in amazing restaurants: in Lyon, Barcelona, Mexico City, London, New York, Tokyo, etcetera, will appreciate this place.

The dinner we had tonight was sublime: delicious, subtle, perfectly satisfying, kicking off with the simplest of things, the bread and the special butter which caused my wife to say. “ this is #%ckinv awesome”

Everyone from Paula our bartender to Ian our waiter to the chefs who made it all happen Did lovely work.

Life is unpredictable and short. There are terrible people like Trump and others around the world trying to make life worse for everyone. In the meantime, there is this level of uplifting Food and Care and it gives one more faith that the world can turn out...