When you find out that Hugo Baird and Willy Gresson (the brains behind Honeybones, Lillian and Hotel Ponsonby) and Butter Butter’s Petra Galler are responsible for arguably the hottest new opening in recent months, Mother, it becomes far clearer why this bakery has had queues out the door since it opened in September.
Not content with just adding a defining new daytime eatery to Auckland’s hospitality industry, though, the trio always intended for Mother to be a dual-purpose space that served Galler’s genre-bending bakes in the daytime, shifting gears in the evening to a concept that evokes the informal energy of the wine bars that hold court in any European city worth its salt.
Just in time for the arrival of summer, Mother’s evening service has officially begun. From 3.30pm until late Wednesday til Sunday, the elegant eatery — designed by CTRL Space — will transition into the city’s finest new wine and cocktail bar. The focus here is on simple small plates done well; elevated drinking food that can be a standalone snack or combined to produce a full meal shared over the course of a few lazy, languid drinks in the late evening sun.
Glistening crisps arrive draped in slices of jamon, with a piquant hit from guindilla peppers. Blistered shishito peppers are designed to swipe through the accompanying salty hit of anchovy aioli, classic pork rillettes evoke Parisian streets, and a pert bun filled with wafer-thin slices of mortadella is the kind of meat-and-carb combo that feels religious after a few glasses of wine.
There is a robust wine list, with bottles from across New Zealand and around the world and, crucially, all of them are available by both the glass and the bottle, but excitement really shines through in the cocktail list. Two of the country’s favourite drinks find themselves fused together in the dirty martini tonic, combining the umami hit of a dirty martini with the long, thirst-quenching format of a G&T, while the earl grey clarified white negroni is an elegant refresh on the much-loved classic.
This evolution of Mother proves its status as that rare, unique thing: an elevated all-day eatery designed to nourish the community from sunrise til sunset, adding another notch to the city’s increasingly vibrant hospitality scene.
Bar opening hours:
3:30 pm – late, Wednesday – Sunday
