Food Exchange — Restaurant in Christchurch

My family and I had dinner at the restaurant. We had 3 children with us. Kids food came out very fast. Meals for the adults took some time, and after eating, the kids got down and sat at an empty table.

A drunk guest began shouting at them to keep quiet. The kids were terrified and ran back to our table, where the guest continued shouting at us aggressively to keep our kids in line. We had a bit of a heated exchange, where he finally went back to his table before shouting "Go back to China!".

We do understand our kids may have been noisy (we dont think they were that bad), and we may have overlooked that, we could have been told this a bit more politely by the guest, or even through the staff.

The restaurant staff did come over to apologise to us after the incident, however, we could no longer enjoy our meal, and actually felt unsafe. While we understand that the staff could not really have controlled the behaviour of the guest, we would have appreicated it if the manager and staff had stepped in to diffuse the situation.

We hope that the restaurant management can look into the matter, and take extra measures in cutting off alcohol to drunk guests (as indicated in the sign saying they would not serve alcohol to intoxicated patrons), and have some protocols to deal with these incidents. If the restaurant is not child friendly this should also be made known to guests at the very beginning so that families do not enter. We also hope that the management can follow up on the matter by possibly looking at placing a ban on the guest, as I am certain this would happen again if he were drunk.

Looking forward to...

The restaurant is located on the sixth floor of Novotel Christchurch Hotel, it is one of few fine dining restaurants in close vicinity of the airport. It’s location means one could get a nice panoramic view of the airport and the surroundings.

The prices of the menu is one of the more expensive options here but it is not unreasonably pricey. I had the opportunity to dine here during a stay. However, I felt that it was average at best. The Tempura Goat Cheese with compote and honey is interesting but a little too heavy and rich (best to be shared with a few people) and lacks balance . . The main course of the Lamb Shoulder is not great: the meat was too dry at most parts and the mash was too starchy and lacks flavor. The sauce helps a bit but it doesn’t quite rise up be a good dish.

Another detail is that a part of the restaurant is cordoned off which faces the airport and the mountains of Christchurch which I feel takes away the restaurant’s advantage of a great vantage point for dining.

The service was good in general and the wine and beverage menu is quite diverse . The room service menu is also priced the same as the dine in menu which is...

Quite a bizarre experience coming here, our first time. But firstly this is an amazing restaurant setting and amazing location. We arrived after pre-booking a table for two, and were asked to wait while they set our table. I thought this was strange, especially given the restaurant didn’t seem busy and we had a reservation. We ordered our starter and our mains at the same time and our mains arrived before our starter did, the waitress was unaware, apologised and returned with our starter a few minutes later. The food was well cooked but not spectacular, especially for the price. The whole night noone asked if we were ok for drinks, or how our meal was. Anything we wanted to we had to get someone’s attention to get it for us. Basic training on how to wait a table seemed to be almost absent. Lastly, we ordered some house-made ice cream for dessert which we never recieved and after waiting for half an hour we gave up and left. We had to ask them to remove the ice cream from the bill. I look forward to coming back here in the future and hope for a better service experience than we...