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The Nelson area has a lot of eateries, including one frequently-lauded establishment a few steps from our front door. But the locals I’d consulted had arrived at near-universal agreement: Flax (Mapua Wharf, Mapua) is the best of the bunch. And so, we choose it for our final restaurant meal in New Zealand.

Some choices one might like back.

When Flax is good, it’s quite good. The atmosphere is fun and casual, the room is littered with regulars, and the food is the sort of high-quality, simply-prepared, ingredient-focused fare that, properly cooked, never goes out of style or taste. The problems are all off the menu, with a staff that’s a little too numerous and pushy for the room, and that brusquely rushes us through our meal with a very un-Kiwi coldness and rapidity. A scant 35 minutes after our arrival, we’re a few crumbs from being done with our main courses. This is no way to run a restaurant.

Perhaps there’s someone wielding a whip in the kitchen, but the hurry and bustle seems to unbalance our waitress, who tosses food in front of us, turns, and knocks over every single one of our neighboring table’s wine glasses. (I note, with concern, that she replaces neither their glasses nor their wine, and surreptitiously hold onto both or ours whenever she returns.) The prevailing impression here is that one must eat quickly or suffer the consequences; everything possible is done to move us in and out as rapidly as possible. Yet other tables seem to enjoy nearly an hour of profit-free postprandial lingering. Maybe one has to be a regular? It’s all baffling, and highly irritating.

I start with a delicious mushroom and oyster soup, taken in an unusual direction with the inclusion of dill and lots of piquant local olive oil (I don’t inquire as to the source, unfortunately). It takes me a few minutes to warm to the combination, but I’m eventually won over; the flavors just need time to meld. That they don’t until I’m at the end of the bowl suggests, yet again, some sort of rush in the kitchen. Soups, as every cook knows, cohere with age. What’s the hurry?

Jenny Wheeler of Greenhough stops by the table to say hello, and seems much friendlier than she was at our previous encounter. Though it probably doesn’t hurt that I’ve got one of her wines on the table. Her partner Andrew, who seems even more casual, has an insider’s connection here: his brother owns the restaurant. I’m tempted to ask if I can take away his brother’s watch, but restrain myself.

Pork belly in a tomato-based sauce, accompanied by kumara and grilled bok choy, isn’t a dish that the fat-fearful would want to contemplate, but I love it. The pork, especially, is delicious, and flawlessly brought to that perfectly-poised point between decadent juiciness and artery-preserving rendering. The skin isn’t crisped – a technique I’ll come to expect in later years – but the dish suffers not a whit for the lack.

For dessert, I’m served house-made ice creams that are rather melted by the time they arrive at our table. What’s the matter, couldn’t they get them out fast enough? (Sorry, sarcasm has gotten the better of me.) A rather dismal flat white – a drink that requires patience, so it’s no surprise that Flax can’t execute it – follows, both overly foamy and under-flavored.

As I’ve noted, Flax has good qualities, and I wouldn’t want to discourage anyone from dining here, but despite its reputation it must be treated as a café that serves food, rather than the restaurant it has ambitions of being. (Adding to this feeling: one pays at the counter, rather than at tableside…a bit of info that isn’t made clear to us as we linger, post-coffee, wondering if the check will ever arrive. That could explain the permanently-occupied tables, though.) There is, however, one unquestioned positive aspect to Flax: it’s sinfully inexpensive given the quality of the food and the wine. If only the service met the same standard. (3/05)

Note: Apparently, Flax has closed.