Misceo Cafe & Bar — Restaurant in Christchurch

We have been dining at Misceo for over 30 years and have always considered it a neighbourhood staple. Sadly, today’s visit was one of the most underwhelming we have experienced anywhere in a long time.

The service was woeful, particularly from one female staff member who showed zero enthusiasm, initiative or sense of hospitality. We were greeted with a stale welcome, waited far too long to have our drinks order taken, and watched our pizza sit on top of the oven for ten minutes before it was finally brought to the table, despite the restaurant not being overly busy.

The food (other than the flatbread) was equally disappointing. The scrambled eggs were dry and oddly textured, served on bone dry bread with no butter or anything to bring it together. The fried chicken was cooked to oblivion and barely edible. To top it off, my Diet Coke finally arrived just as we were getting up to leave, with no apology or even an acknowledgment. At no point were we asked how the meal was. Perhaps that was intentional as they could see we barely touched our food.

As loyal patrons of more than three decades, it is incredibly disappointing to say we are unlikely to return. Misceo used to represent friendliness and consistency. Today, it felt like a shadow of what it once was. I was surprised upon arrival to see how dead it was for a Sunday lunch, but now it makes sense. Hopefully someone in the ownership group gets involved soon to get things back on track!

Until then, we’ll...

It was 8.30pm when we had finished after 6.30 dining on a Wednesday night after we had made a booking and arrived on time and ordered our meal. Which we enjoyed but asked to see a dessert which we were given a menu but no one came back to get our order as as we saw they were busy cleaning up so we then decided to have a coffee which then we were told coffee machine has been shut up so tea and hot chocolate was our choice. To our view not satisfactory as why did no one inform us as there was only 8-10 patrons dining with 2 other just before we left joined in for a meal. The comment came back to us as " I am sorry we will take this into consideration next time" which we all felt was not sincere as more like I am not really interested as we just all want to go home. Misceo after all the years I have supported and you had a member of my family who once work for this restaurant it was a thoroughly disappointing service and so sorry we came on a week day night to...

Misceo Cafe and Bar gets a 4 star review due to the service I received while ordering at the bar, most notably the highly recommended tequila that was served when inquiring about alcoholic beverages

The waitress allowed me to photograph the bottle of tequila for future reference and informed me that the owner is a tequila aficionado - and rightly so! It was delicious and I appreciated the recommendation - thanks very much!

The only reason that this isn't a 5-star rating is due to another staff member (I assume the bar manager) gruffly coming through to inform us that the bar was closed and so our group had to quickly finish our drinks (some of which were nearly full) and leave immediately.

A sour note for an otherwise...