What great timing. Just as I am asked to review Osteria del Toro – the fancy new ‘restaurant Mediterranean and bar de tapas’ – who should come to Welly for the weekend but my only Italian friend, Ms Iannuzzi. With roots in Avellino, near Naples, Patzy now lives in the Motueka Valley where she tends twenty acres of lifestyle gorse – when she’s not obsessing over meatballs and red sauce, or pondering the merits of various olive oils and dried pasta. So, we were only too pleased that she joined us.

Osteria del Toro is an opulent restaurant, designed by Michael Nalder, responsible for the Red Square bar and Monsoon Poon. Both of those fit-outs are pretty full-on, but this time he’s really gone for gold. Beyond the latticed passageway – reminiscent of a wine cellar – a large and elegant dining room awaits. The stud is super-high, the floor tiles go for miles, and the windows are lavishly draped in fabric of the same golden tan used to upholster the floor-to-ceiling chesterfield columns. It is these which must account for the acoustics – we could hardly hear a sound from the busy, open kitchen. No pan clang, no clatter of cutlery.

In the baroque style, eye-bogging follies and flamboyant art abound: the lion water fountain, a ten-foot-high gilt mirror, the oversize urns. Moorish lightshades and sparkly chandeliers, dimmed to just the right level, bathe the room in a warm glow. Evocative of a grand Mediterranean tour, Nalder’s bold vision is successfully realised, and entirely simpatico with the food.

The menu plucks popular classics from cuisine de la Med: Italian pasta; Greek souvlaki; Portuguese bacalhau; Tunisian fish stew; Moroccan couscous; and Spanish tapas, of course. The wine list also sticks unwaveringly to the theme. Toro doesn’t charge like a wounded bull: most of the mains are $22 or under. Manager and co-owner Roberto Giorgioni explained that this is central to the osteria philosophy, that it should be a meeting place for families and friends, where an affordable meal can be enjoyed together.

Eager to explore Toro’s borders, we selected a broad range of dishes to share. We started with pizza ($17), which we immediately promoted to our Wellington Top 3 for its crispy base, luscious topping, and Ortiz anchovies. This we had alongside two fish dishes: swordfish brochette ($12), succulent and fresh, zigzagged with a tangy salsa verde; and a brandade of cod ($9.50), a salty cod puree, only slightly let down by its temperature (too cold) and chewy crostini.

It’s hard to pick a winner from the next round of dishes. The roast chicken with forty gloves of garlic ($19.50) comprised a generous leg, moist and especially delicious when combined with the mild, buttery garlic, squeezed from its skin, and the merguez sausage accompanying it. The lamb tagine ($19.50) fell off the bone into a rich, cinnamon gravy, every ounce of which was mopped up with tender potato and carrot. The aromatic fish stew ($22) boasted bright brunoise vegetables in a fine, saffron broth. And finally, the meatballs in red sauce ($16.50) – not quite as good as Patzy’s, but then, who’s are? Despite being as full as bulls, our waitress had no trouble talking us into a killer espresso martini followed by limoncello made by Roberto’s friend up the coast.

We left in extremely good humour, Patzy declaring it the best meal she’d had in a restaurant for a very long time. Gracias y a bientot.

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