REVIEW | INTI
I waited at Inti’s polished concrete bar for my friend, chatting to the staff who were very welcoming and eager to tell me all about their restaurant, which had been open for only a few months. The space was modern and full of dualities. The concrete bar was paired with the natural timber of the floor, the dark and intimate seating in the back contrasted with the open tables out front against white walls, and the fiery reds of the evening sunset shone against lighting made to mimic dappled water projected into the ceiling corners. However, my favourite thing about the interior design was the black and gold graphics painted on the walls depicting Aztec figures and llamas by urban street artist, Flox.
I was excited to try something new. A restaurant that served upscale, modern Latin American food was not something I had experienced in Auckland before. Parts of the menu even use traditional insect ingredients that are common in Latin America, but not so much in New Zealand, such as cricket panucho and black ant.
When my friend arrived, we ordered two drinks – a mocktail (the Machu Pichu) and a cocktail (the Brazilian). Hearing that we wanted to taste each other’s drink, the bartender kindly split each one into two glasses, which was a really convenient option that I’d never been offered before. Both were refreshing on a hot spring evening that was really summer in disguise.
We ordered the duck in honey brine (rose petal mole with coconut horchata) and the cebiche (with burnt paw paw, tamarindo, raw oca, turmeric, sesame leaf) to start with. The Head Chef at Inti, Javier Carmona, has also been the Executive Chef of the upmarket restaurant Beirut, which featured a duck and rose petal jam dish that I absolutely loved. Although Beirut takes its culinary influence from Middle Eastern cuisine, I was eager to see how Inti’s dish would compare.
Decorated with cauliflower, herbs and bright pink rose petals that brought out the perfect blush of the duck, this dish was even better than Beirut’s. The portions of food at Inti are more generous and the duck was posed on an ample bed of rose petal mole and coconut horchata sauce. This is an improvement on Beirut’s dish, which, while delicious, lacked a sauce element.
The cebiche, while not packing the bright pink colour of the duck, was nonetheless beautiful to look at. The raw oca had been sliced to look like scales, and a mouthful of all the elements yielded a strong, fruity taste from the burnt paw paw.
Still feeling slightly peckish, we decided to try the cactus guacamole. Out came a beautiful wreath of green avocado, garnished with tiny white edible flowers. The guacamole was well seasoned and I enjoyed the tiny pieces of what tasted like pickled cactus to make the texture more multidimensional.
For dessert, we tried the goat milk Crema Catalana. Unfortunately, this dessert was not to my taste. It was overly sweet and none of the other elements on the plate offered any relief. To the absolute credit of the staff (in particular, thanks to our server Caroline) and our surprise at the end of the evening, they had kindly removed the dessert from our bill after taking our feedback into account. This is indicative of all the excellent customer service we experienced throughout that evening.
Modern, different and welcoming, Inti is a great venue for an evening meal and I will definitely be returning in the future.
Customer service: Excellent 5/5
Drinks: Good 3.5/5
Food: Tasty and beautiful presented 4/5
Location: Auckland, CBD
