Oak Barrel Wood Fired Pizza • Restaurant & Bar — Restaurant in Ōrākei

This is a great concept: a wine store that’s also a restaurant. The bottles line the walls and tables with benches run through the middle. Prices are written on the bottles and $10 corkage is added if you want to drink it onsite (they also sell wine to take home). Great concept, but it needs a little polish. There’s no printed wine list, so I asked what champagne they have. The waiter didn’t know, so sent someone else over. I assumed they second guy was very knowledgeable about wine until, when advising us on our second bottle, he let slip that he doesn’t know and he likes to drink everything. If you’re going to make wine a big feature and not have a wine list, your wait staff need to have at least some knowledge of wine and someone should be able to make some informed recommendations. The food was fine. We’ve had the pizza delivered to home (they are very good) so I wanted to try something else. Snapper on risotto with salad was good, but nothing amazing and a little too salty. Portions are huge so good to soak up the wine. A couple more quibbles about the service. No one came to ask if we wanted dessert (we probably would). At around 10pm the lights were turned up and the wait staff started stacking chairs on a table at the back. On a Friday night. So a few things to work on. Would I go back? Possibly, but with much lowered...

I don’t usually write reviews, but I can’t leave this situation unaddressed as I am local, and I like going out locally. I used to be a regular customer of Oak Barrel and loved the restaurant’s unique concept—opening a bottle of wine to enjoy with a meal before taking it home. Unfortunately, since the new manager took over, I’ve watched this special place go downhill. The manager lacks basic wine knowledge and couldn’t provide me with any information about the wines they sell. He even struggled to tell me which region a particular wine was from. On top of that, his way of speaking to patrons is completely unacceptable. He seems to have no grasp of the essence of hospitality—you’ll never succeed if you only think about money. He views customers as wallets, treating them based on his assumptions about how much they’ll spend. It’s heartbreaking to watch, as it feels like he’s destroying the atmosphere that made this place so special. I used to visit a couple of times a week to buy wine, but sadly, I don’t think...

Rudest customer service ever experienced !!! I recently visited this place to try their “Woodfried Pizza” with two family members, and unfortunately, it was a deeply disappointing experience. We ordered a pizza to share, but the waiter, who was the rudest and most disrespectful I’ve encountered, ruined the entire visit. He took our order and then, told us “We don’t do dine-in for just one pizza; only takeaway, but it’s okay for today.” This made us feel incredibly unwelcome. The whole atmosphere was spoiled, so we opted for takeaway instead. If that’s their policy, it should be clearly displayed, not sprung on customers after ordering. When we pointed this out at the payment counter, the waiter became defensive and responded very harshly. It’s ironic for a place whose tagline highlights their woodfired pizza to treat customers so poorly over an order. I regret suggesting this place to my family and will...