MARY'S Cuisine: Posh playful diner
Address: 15 Joll Road, Havelock North
Phone: 06 650 7770
Drinks: Fully licensed, Craggy Range wines
Reservations: Yep - it's small and busy
Straight after lockdown, Craggy Range Restaurant chef Casey
McDonald launched Casey’s Diner in the cellar next to the winery restaurant and found it wildly popular. He has transplant the concept to
Havelock North with Mary’s, an upscale diner named for Mary
Peabody, wife of Craggy Range founder Terry Peabody. It's a good-looking joint, reminiscent perhaps of a posh New York Diner from the thirties. An open kitchen and bar extend in
a horseshoe into the room, with signature yellow highlights throughout. There's even a small outside area for a sunny day.
The food takes full advantage of the Josper oven, and there's a not unreasonably-priced Craggy Range winelist, as well as a few cocktails. After really enjoying a bite on the Craggy Range terrace during our last trip, five of us called in for lunch at Mary's during our recent weekend in Hawke's Bay.
There is a small menu - 3 Bites, 3 Entrees, 3 Mains, 2 Sides - and, yes, one of them is a cheeseburger. But that's about as close to a traditional diner as you get. This is tasty fancy food: we ordered most of it. The bread came quickly and the next thing we did was to immediately order a second serving. Both because it's not large and because it was simply fantastic, soft bread, charred by the Josper over, filled with a gooey cheesey Béchamel sauce. It was simply the best, most decadent bread we could remember!
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| THAT bread! |
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| THAT bread (close up)! |
BITES
- Mary's garlick-y, cheese-y bread (v) $9
ENTREES
- Raw fish, horseradish cream, citrus dressing & black pepper (gf) $22
- Coal roasted halloumi, grilled & marinated endive, sweet 'n' sour fig (v) (gf) $23
- Grilled prawns, potato aioli, capsicum, garlic & chilli butter (gfo) $26
- Baked potato gnocchi, roasted tomato sauce, basil & mozzarella (vgo) (vfo) $29
- Fish fillet, braised octopus, olive tapenade, lemon & burnt butter sauce (gf) $37
- Shoestring fries & aioli (vgo) $9
- Rocket, parmesan, pear & walnut salad, chardonnay dressing (gf) (vgo) $9
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| Raw Fish |
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| Halloumi |
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| Prawns |
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| Gnocchi |
In fact everything was top notch. The raw fish was a favourite: it looked pretty and the hits of citrus and slight sharpness of the radish made for a bright fresh taste in the mouth. Nearly had two of those as well!
The prawns leaned towards Middle Eastern flavours and Jan declared them the best prawns she'd ever eaten. She is pretty fussy about her prawns so this was high praise indeed! The bed of potato aioli nestled them and there was a scattering of crispy bits to excite the texture buds. The Halloumi - charred in the Josper - rode on a flavour bed of fig and apple which was lovely. Again, it was a light and refreshing dish and very popular.
As for the fish, I didn't try it but it was Tarakihi and Russell declared it excellent! I also didn't try the gnocchi but our vegetarian diner gave it the thumbs up. The salad and fries were all you could ask for.
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| Fish... |
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| ...and Chips |
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| Salad |
We were all seriously blown away. The staff, during a hectic and busy service, were nothing less than calm and efficient and we enjoyed a selection of Craggy Range wines, including some older ones from the list. There's a good range by the glass. In case you're curious, the wine list is here.
I can do nothing but recommend Mary's in the highest terms. We liked it so much we actually called back later for a sneaky cocktail. Havelock North is lucky to have it.
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