Start with a drink: Apero

Some days I just need sanctuary. Preferably with fine wine and tasty food. But on those heart wearing days, I don’t want to think. Decisions are beyond me.  By that time, a list to wrestle wine choices from is just too hard.

Apero is my sanctuary.

Serving K Rd’s best food, Apero is a small, snug wine bar. Behind the bar is a relaxed bloke called Mo. I love Mo because when I see him I know my wine choosing challenge is gone.

Here’s how it usually goes:

Mo: “What do you feel like drinking?”

Weary me: “No idea.”

Mo: “Good, how about this then?”

He then begins to pour and I don’t make it past his second suggestion before settling happily into emotional and gustatory recovery.

Apero is a whanau thing – Mo is out front, his partner Leslie cooks and oh but how. There is a very small menu, I barely look at it. There’s a specials board that gives me all of the options I need so I just order off that. Line caught fish and lamb sweetbreads being my recent faves.

So what to drink? I ask Mo. The great thing about Mo is, even if you really know your wine, he’s going to have a glass pour of something that you have never heard of. Something wondrous and intriguing.

Last week it was two Greek wines. And no, not Retsina. I don’t recall what they were called but they were delicious: one a muscadet-like delicacy, the other a port-like wine which I wish I could hunt down and buy for home. Sadly, though I can’t. Not just because I can’t pronounce them but I have no chance of finding them. Mo is a magnet for hard to find wine.

Often, wine professionals pop in to ask Mo for an opinion on something rare they’ve got to get their hands on. Regularly, he buys some of this unusual wine and rewards his regulars with a unique experience of fine and flavoursome wines that take the palate far from the beaten path.

I accept that this is not an especially useful or informative review. Where the dish descriptions? Where the wine names, prices and commended picks?

Well my friend, the food is in Leslie’s kitchen and on her specials board, the wine is behind Mo’s lovely hand-crafted wooden bar, built by Leslie’s Dad, actually. It’s like this, if you come to my place for food and drinks, I’ll choose and I’ll treat you with things I adore and I think that you will appreciate. Why would you pick? Let me make the decisions and be my guest, my friend.

Apero is their place, be their guest. Stress free, sanctuary.

What: Apero

Where: 280 Karangahape Road, Auckland

When: Open from 4pm, Wednesday -Sunday. Lunch on Friday.

Contact: info@apero.co.nz  |  09 373 4778