To be honest, I have not been going out to eat food at Restaurants lately as you can feel how times are tough and things are so much more expensive. I would like to support local, but things have started to add up. Gone are days when I could easily afford to go out for a meal once a week to a restaurant and also go have a few cheap eats, but now it is just cheap eats and maybe a restaurant once every three or four weeks. However, as I was going to enjoy Matariki and see Teeks, I decided to try Kisa out with some friends.
One of the great things, I really like about Kisa is that 50% of the tables are bookable while the other 50% are for walk-ins. I couldn’t book a table but we turned up at 5.50 and although we could not get a table we were seated at benches and bar stools looking over the kitchen.
Tried numerous dishes. They came out when they were ready and they were really nice. I loved the made-to-order house pita and it went really well with the; Lor cheese, house-made, porcini za’atar, local olive oil which was my favourite dish of the night.
The Cured market fish, Ekşili lemon, burnt spring onion, fried caper was really refreshing and settled down the palate, especially all the red meat we ordered. Also, the Mozzarella böreks, tomato butter, black olive, toum were really good, especially with the black olive tapenade on the side. I just wished I ate it when it first came out instead of having it when it was cooler.
The Duck pastirma, house-cured, warm duck fat vinaigrette, frisee, was a really interesting dish with some strong flavours, which was not that surprising. The Wild tahr Adana kebab, pickled green tomato, za’atar was good and the first time I had tahr. I loved the pickled green tomatoes Also, the white sauce that it also came with, which also went really well with the Spiced wild goat mince lahmacun, pickled green tomato, toum, hot honey.
For dessert, I had the Chocolate labneh cheesecake, lime-infused olive oil, sea salt. Which was quite rich, but I managed to finish it. Also, loved the sea salt flakes which dissolved in your mouth with the chocolate. I wouldn’t say the dish was a traditional cheesecake though, but it was delicious.
Overall, a lovely place to dine. The service was really good and the food came out relatively quite fast. Was fascinating sitting overlooking the kitchen, especially watching the charcoal grill in action. It did get really hot sitting there though. To be honest, I am not sure if I would go back though. great dining experience and worth a visit but doesn’t overall stand out for me personally.
Address: 195 Cuba Street, Te Aro, Wellington 6011
Website: Kisa
Trencherman's Travels 