eleven — Restaurant in Christchurch

This was a “did this really just happen” experience 😂 Here is a rundown of our visit:

We were not acknowledged from the moment we walked in the door. After finally flagging down a staff member we were eventually told where our table was. After arriving at the table, there wasn’t enough seats at the table for our booking. We had to find our own chairs so everyone could sit. After ordering a beer & cocktail at the bar, we were told they would bring it to our table. After waiting 30mins, we went to the bar to check on our drinks and were told “sorry, the bar is really busy” (I should note that it was a Friday night, however, I wouldn’t say it was excessively busy!). After waiting another 10minutes, we went back to the bar and asked if we could at least have the bottle of beer first, since it was just from the fridge. The cocktail arrived at the table 5 minutes later. The waitress could not confirm what drinks were being delivered at our table.. after asking what the name of the cocktail was, she just said “cocktail”. We are still unsure if there was an English barrier or if she just hated her job? When we were ready to order food, we were told there was no salads left and no chicken left. One of our friends paid for their drinks by cash. After handing over the cash, she was told they did not have enough money in the till for her change. The bar staff said they would bring the remainder of her cash over to the table. After waiting a long time, she went back to the bar to retrieve her change.. in the end, they still weren’t able to give her the full amount she was owed & she had no option but to leave short changed.

It’s a shame this was a shambles 😂 We even overheard other patrons complaining about the service as we left.

TLDR: If you want a ‘Karen’s Diner’ experience, Eleven is the...

What a shambolic experience this was! We made a booking on FirstTable for 7pm on Friday night and arrived on time to walk in with no one there to greet us or acknowledge we were there, great first impression. Finally someone spoke to us and we were told that our booking had been cancelled as they were fully booked and that we would have got a notification from FirstTable regarding this. I decided to check my emails to make sure of this, which there was no correspondence that suggested this at all. We argued that this wasn’t exactly fair or reasonable as we had paid the fee for FirstTable which he said to contact them and have the issue resolved with them. He then proceeded to offer us a table at full price which contradicted that they were fully booked hence the cancelled booking, second great impression of this dire place. Third cross against this place was after contacting FirstTable they were not aware that it had been cancelled and refunded us our money, this was the only positive thing to come out of this lousy experience.

I would avoid this place like the bubonic plague if you are looking for a decent dining experience, but if you’re looking for poor service, dishonesty and rudeness treat yourself to a second tier Karen’s diner experience. On another note the positive reviews this place has, appear to be rather misleading which is odd and even better yet a shareholder of this business has reviewed it themselves which goes against google reviews policy.

Think this review should be informative enough to future diners to make a wise decision. Avoid.

I wish Eleven Tapas bar...

To start with a positive, the chicken wings were a standout in taste, texture and value for money. However the atmosphere was a shambles with a weird mix of nice Spanish-inspired light fixtures clashing with lame street art murals on the walls.

The food other than the wings was really quite bad even for the $11 price tag. The 24 hour braised beef tacos had me hoping for tender, slow cooked beef but what I got was a weak beef mince chilli on a cheap corn taco shell with limp lettuce. The tiktok that inspired us to try this place also featured 2 tacos per plate rather than the single taco I got.

The prawns were cold and served on barely warmed crostinis, and the spicy beef slider was stringy and gristly which took away any joy we got from the tasty sauce it was coated in. I understand that menu items can’t be produced the exact same way every time, but these also arrived completely differently than how they were shown in said tiktok.

The drinks were okay but even at happy hour pricing were pretty average. They also took a while to arrive, but there was only one bartender and two front of house staff when we went on a decently busy Friday evening, so that’s forgivable.

Hope this place manages to get the quality up or change the menu around because the glimpses of excellence were made all the worse by their weak surroundings and menu...