Curators House Restaurant — Restaurant in Christchurch

Very disappointed with my evening meal here. I am vegetarian and I ordered the $29 'Vegetable Paella'. I was informed that there would be a 25 minute wait, so I ordered a side of fries to start which were an over-priced $8 plus $2 for tomato sauce! When my meal arrived it appeared OK with a few fresh vegetables on top but as I ate those veggies, I realised that underneath was a very greasy and rich tomato sauce with just a lot of rice, peas, sweetcorn and carrots which were so obviously from a frozen packet of vegetables and thus, a cheap ingredient considering the meal cost $29! The menu didn't mention this paella dish containing peas and sweetcorn and there was no sign of the potato which should have been in the dish. False advertising! But the most disappointing part for me was when I informed the Manager about my disappointment with the frozen veggies in the meal, and he completely denied they were from a pack of frozen vegetables and told me they were fresh and were they had come from and he even said the Chef likes to add the peas, sweetcorn and carrots in the dish to make the Spanish people feel more at home! What a load of rubbish!! I've been a vegetarian for 17 years and I know frozen veggies when I see and taste them!! So I was disappointed that the Manager couldn't be honest and simply apologise for the mistake with the meal. I left most of the meal as it wasn't a nice taste and so I asked if I could just pay half the total $29 cost for it and fortunately the Manager obliged. The most enjoyable thing about this meal was the Champagne Sangria, and at $13.50 a glass, thank goodness that went down the hatch well!! A wasted $53 spent in total. I won't be coming back or recommending this...

Came for a uni graduation - our table was in a small room with two other filled tables. It was so cramped / noisy that we struggled to have conversations with our own table.

I ordered pork belly - $35. The pork belly was noticeably smaller than the palm of my hand and had 5 asparagus and a small amount of mash under it. This was not even close to a main - you shouldn't go to the curators for dinner then have to go buy yourself dinner afterwards (which 4 out of 6 of our table had to do...) the pork belly was fine but the price and portion was close to a joke..

2 people at my table ordered a seafood dish with rice for $90. the rice was hard and crunchy and both people said it was undercooked and unenjoyable. It went untouched. We complained and were told they could cook it further but as the seafood (e.g squid) was mixed into the hard rice, the seafood would end up tough and chewy. What a mess.. this should be easy to rectify should of been handled better..

When 2 seafood lovers order a dish from a restaurant $90 and cannot eat it, and no refund is offered there's a real problem for the business.. it shouldn't be on the customer to compensate for these problems..

Curators has potential with the location but will not be back -due to the food quality/portion/prices and cramped/noisy dining conditions.. lots of room for...

I went to the Curators house this evening for a light meal. We were meant by slow customer service, we decided to order the kids fish n chips, a bowl of chips and the cauliflower. When our food arrived both the bowl of chips and the fish n chips looked as though they were recooked in the microwave and the cauliflower was undercooked and hard. When I asked the server if she could bring me a new bowl of fries I was meant with a rude response and was told that I was wrong and the food was cooked fresh. The server then walked away and another lady came over to our table who began trying to argue with me telling us that our chips where freshly made that day and they only looked like old reheated chips because they were a special type of chip “filled with sugar”. I was then told to order something else off the menu so I ordered the sourdough which came out burnt and with a tiny amount of olive oil to dip it in. By this point I felt extremely unwelcome by the staff who were avoiding us and making sure that the other customers didn’t sit near our table. I had such a bad experience at this restaurant that I’ve made a google account just to post a bad review. Avoid...