Bellota-ful

Cheap, cheerful, cosy and chic, the new Peter Gordon tapas bar is the perfect place to dream of Spanish eyes.

First things first. It’s pronounced ‘Bey-oh-ta’, not ‘Be-lotta’ or even ‘Bloater’. But whatever you call it, the new tapas bar at SkyCity, conceived by Peter Gordon and designed by architect Andrew Lister, is a great place to spend an evening. On Auckland’s Federal St, in the SkyCity Grand complex, Lister has created an upmarket version of the casual hole-in-the-wall tapas bars that dot Barcelona and Madrid.

Bellota is Spanish for ‘acorn’, but not just any acorn – the particular type of acorn that is fed to pigs to create the famous Jamon Iberica de Bellota, a type of proscuitto with a rich, nutty flavour. It also seems to be a nod the colour of the leather booth seating in the bar – a dark orange-brown, like the shell of an acorn. In fact, the entire palette that Lister has chosen is rich and warm – dark wood flooring and joinery, pale caramel marble tops for the small oval tables, deep red-brown for the walls and deep purple for the teardrop pendant lights suspended over the booth tables (somewhat hazardously, we might add, after at least five encounters between the lights and our heads over the course of an evening).

Lister, who also designed the interiors for SkyCity’s Orbit restaurant, says he was keen to create a space that was quite different from any of the other restaurants and bars in the complex. And it is. The space has a cosy, cave-like intimacy, with textured plaster walls and ceilings, a wall of melted candles, each on their own small metal shelf, small booths to hold no more than five or six people each, and low pools of light. A long, high communal table at the front of the bar offers space for larger parties or sociable singles. References to Spain abound, from the large abstract bull motif that Lister designed and rendered in metal for the entrance, and the ‘Juan’ and ‘Juanita’ signs in the bathroom. If you’re dreaming of a Spanish holiday but can’t afford the ticket, Bellota’s your best bet in the meantime.