Out to Lunch - Mitchelli's Deli and Caf

OUT TO LUNCH: Mediterranean Food Company & Cafe

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Last week Kate Fraser went out for an Italian lunch.

It could have ended in tears, as my partner in lunch was fresh from weeks in Italy with images of food, wine, weather, pretty villages and leafy cycle trails still in her mind. It was too late to cancel, so Mitchelli's it was.

The cafe's promotional material mentions Italian cuisine but we came to the conclusion they should have put "Italian atmosphere" up first. The fresh- off-the-plane dame was full of admiration.

There is a buzz from the off: a clatter of conversation and clashing plates and a smell of strong coffee and roasting tomatoes. Friendly but not pushy is a hard note to get right. They do.

The blackboard menu lists the pizza, Italian-style filled breads and pasta dishes of the day but, like others in the queue, we spent time surveying the cabinet offerings. I am not a fan of pre- cooked food that needs instant heating but maybe I should get over it.

I must have been showing off by ordering the mushroom and chicken bake. Al forno is about the limit of my Italian and I like the style. Whether fresh from the oven or slowly reheated, the flavours of Italian oven-baked dishes are usually deep and rich.

Not this time. My mushroom and chicken pasta bake was a light dish. The mushroom flavours were intense, but the chicken elusive and the spaghetti arranged over the sauce had dried to the point of crispness in some places.

My disapproval was mostly swept aside by the green salad served on the same plate. There were appropriate bitter leaves, a bit of crunch from another source, and a gentle softness all round. And who could fail to approve the set of do-your-own dressing bottles of oil and vinegar. Next time I will order bread; it would have sopped up the mushroom juices more effectively than the strands of pasta.

The cabinet selection included long flutes - Mitchelli's term is Flatts - all crisp and creamy with a filling of cream cheese and chilli. An order of orzo salad might not have been everyone's idea of good food companions with the bready stick, but when you've dined in Venice and wined in Rome, you know what goes with what and when. Flatts got the nod anyway.

Mitchelli's website has it that it's OK to enjoy a drink during the day when you're in Italy. No argument there. Or with the cafe's wine selection. Not huge but interesting, with a good New Zealand selection, including Christchurch label Woods Edge and the stunning Catalina sauvignon blanc.

A clever bit of wine service has aromatic whites from room-temperature bottles served in chilled glasses. This results in glasses of beautifully temperate wines.

If it seems infra dig to reserve the highest praise for the coffees served at the end of lunch, it is not intentional. All coffee aficionados who are yet to discover Mitchelli's should go as soon as possible.

Have your coffee with a gently warmed slice of espresso cake, sit in the sun upstairs overlooking the quirky neighbourhood that is Ash St and Poplar Lane and your day, too, will be made.

MITCHELLI'S DELI AND CAF: Ash St, Christchurch 377 4574 Closed Mondays 

COST: Pasta $15.50, Flatts $7.50, side salad $4.50. Catalina sauvignon blanc $8.00, espresso with extra hot water $3. Espresso cake $4

WHO: Fashion designers, real estate agents, students, City Council scribes, yummy mums

STYLE: Suits, fleecies

GO AGAIN: Yes, I'm a coffee fiend

RATING: good ambience and great coffee made up for the not-so-good pasta bake.

- © Fairfax NZ News