A Taste of France

549 Great North Road - Grey Lynn - Auckland -
Telephone: 09 376 6682
HOURS (no bookings):
Tuesday Wednesday Thursday 4pm - late
Friday Saturday 3pm - late

MENU
Private PAELLA PARTIES in the courtyard available
- Sunday & Monday, or weekday lunches
Full site under construction

Grey Lynn. Why did they choose that name (no, please don't write to the editor; honestly, she's not in the least interested) for one of the most colourful suburbs in Auckland?

Stepping inside the new Mondial Cafe, Jude, daughter Sian, her friend Karina and I have stepped into another world. Another to add to the six or seven or 22 along the shopping strip outside.

Mondial is kind of, but not quite, French or Italian or Spanish for "the world" or "global". It's a bodega, a Spanish wine and tapas bar, even if it doesn't (yet) have hams hanging from the ceiling or barrels stacked around the walls or ropes of garlic and ribbons of peppers. It has the most important ingredients: Wines. Tapas. Hosts. The space and the people for conversation.

Manuel Garcia was the face and the chat behind the wonderful, sadly rundown Bonita, once the best and likely the only genuine tapas bar in Auckland; his business partner, Pascal Murello, graced tables at Euro for a longish time. Both were lately at Prohibition, the gangster-era theme restaurant in Ponsonby.

Murello's Italian-French origins are in Roussillon, not too far from the Pyrenees, and Garcia is from Leon, the northwestern Spanish city where they know a pintxos or two about tapas.

Article continues New Zealand Herald