Eden Garden Cafe — Restaurant in Albert-Eden

We had booked for a High Tea experience for an 80th birthday but were terribly disappointed. The two girls who served us didn’t appear to have any interest whatsoever in being there, there were zero smiles, not an ounce of customer service, and it took ages for the tea to be delivered in the first instance. The teas and the cake stand were then very unceremoniously dumped onto the table – there was no explanation of what was being served, and no menu on the table. When we decided to upgrade to include a glass of champagne each, little bottles were dumped on the table, unopened and the glasses were not particularly clean.

As for the food, it was decidedly below average. The cucumber sandwiches were dry, the other savouries looked and tasted as if they were leftovers from the previous day. The cream on the scones looked very unappealing and the calibre of the other sweets was not at all at the level of what we expected for a High Tea at this price and we definitely did not feel like we got value for money.

Based on the above, we were bitterly disappointed and would not visit again or recommend to others.

Even more disappointing was the lack of response to an email sent directly to the cafe over 3 weeks ago expressing our disappointment. I was hoping my feedback could be used constructively for future improvement to the Cafe but it's obvious that management do not care. Such a shame as Eden Gardens is a...

Really uninspired high tea. Wanted to do something special for Mother's Day and had the assumption we would be seated alfresco in the gardens. Instead I was disappointed we were seated on collapsible plastic tables in a weird little room that had random cables everywhere.

The tea china had massive hairline cracks and chips through them (which carry bacteria and ideally would be replaced) and barely any cutlery - no teaspoons, no cake forks.

Food was mediocre. Felt like a bunch of store-bought stuff slapped together, a good example of which was a lemon curd tart which looked like off the shelf pastry tarts, curd and meringue toppers stacked together. Scones were definately dry and lacked good dollops of jam and cream. I also suspect food was not fresh, as at the time we were served at an afternoon reservation, the mousse in the chocolate cups had liquified.

Halfway through our end-of-the-day seating, all table service apparently abandoned everyone.

In all, I was embarrassed to...

High tea not quite what we'd hoped for. I was spoiling my sister and her husband-to-be to a treat meal in Auckland, but not being from Auckland Eden Gardens seemed an ideal spot. We appreciated the setting, the service and the look of the other meals rolling out around us but we were all very disappointed by the cost of the high tea relative to what was served. We could have had 2 amazing meals and drinks each for the same price. Upon previous experiences at high teas, we'd had option of sampling numerous teas which unfortunately was not the case here. They willingly accommodated our early arrival request and the lady at reception was incredibly helpful, I just so wish we got better value for money. Too much sweet and the savoury was terribly disappointing and...