Winnie Bagoes Ferrymead — Restaurant in Christchurch

Four of us ( X2 Couples) visited this venue yesterday (18th August’24) using first table 5:15pm slot. As a mandate from FT all of us bought drinks, surprisingly, my friend’s coke had an extra element in it - A FLY. He unknowingly drank a few sips and realised and told the server about it. The person came in on the table, and acted like its very normal and took the glass without even apologising for it & got him a new drink half filled with ice, when at first my friend ordered a drink without ice because of his throat. I understand if the place is completely packed and the servers are busy serving people, but there were hardly 4-5 tables that were occupied till 7pm until we were there. Inspite of all the empty spaces, we were made to sit near a table of 10-12 people where there were kids mostly for a birthday party, Why? DO NOT BUY ANYTHING WITH OLIVES FROM HERE. They have a small disclaimer on their menu in the end where the pizza menu is about their olives containing pits which i obviously missed and ordered a greek salad with olives with pits. Almost choked on one. Upon asking, the girl serving us got really agitated and implied on us checking the menu that they have it mentioned there. Yes, but i ordered a salad, which is on a different section with pizzas. PLEASE WRITE IT NEXT TO THE ITEM AS A DISCLAIMER. It is a big food safety and H&S Hazard. Requested for chilli flakes with the order, and obviously they did not come as well, had to ask again twice. Took a takeaway box for leftover pasta, and the servers as quick they were with taking the dishes and cutlery away as soon as one of us would finish something, without even blinking a bit, could not be bothered giving me a fork or spoon to transfer the past into my takeaway box. Why? When most of them were just busy talking.

We wanted to order desserts, but obviously no cared to ask or give us the menu to order. Why bother open a restaurant when the customer service is so bad & when you do not want customers here?

Finally, when we went to pay, the person charged us in full knowing we came through first table and while we left, my friend asked how much we paid so we can split and i told him. He was a bit shocked as $170 with FT did not seem reasonable, so we went back & the person again very casually ‘oh yeah, i did not charge you through FT’ let me refund you in cash. After paying 2% credit card charge on $170, we got a refund of $73 cash.

Pathetic service, NEVER COMING BACK HERE OR RECOMMENDING THIS...

Celebratory meal with (favourite Grand daughter and her partner) so atmosphere gets 4 , would have been 5, but another party were really obnoxiois, loud and rude.. not the fault of the restaurant tho. We were outside in the covered enclosed eatery, inside the restaurant proper was very busy, with that nice burbling buzz of folk out enjoying good food and company in convivial surroundings. If I were to make a single suggestion I'd say book, and get a table inside. Starters, interesting selection, and decent portion sizes. I had calamari, as good as I've had anywhere, tastey, enough bite without being too chewy. Excellent fresh warm garlic bread, and nice olive oil and balsamic dip. Mains..well took quite a while, but with the best company in the world, what was the hurry? One of our party had seafood risotto, and it was obviously made to order. Our guests had steak, cooked to perfection, but not quite rested enough, I'd gone with a seafoody main, and (very unusually for me) couldn't finish it. Doggie bag, no problem. So, why not 5 stars.. Food was excellent seemed like an authentic italian feel to the kitchen, the steak, not rested, bled on the plate. The risotto too many bits of calamari (for it's recipient) needed more shellfish and prawns. We didn't get to try the deserts totally 'stuffed', and by this point our obnoxiois neighbours were getting to some of us. The menu had flavoured peligrino, there was nothing wrong with the lemonillo, but it wasn't Peligrino, our go to sparkling water. Service: well, we later discovered it was our waiter's first Friday night. He wasn't familiar with the menu, and made the odd error. Then mains he was intimidated by the head waiter (?) hovering watching and supervising.. however he clearly was customer focused. Atmosphere, inside would have been 5* and probably lifted the service score to 5 too, it had a real party buzz, but our obnoxiois neighbours were a real pain. So bottom line, would I go again, with a works outing group..like a shot, a business intro meal, maybe, as a quiet romantic dinner for two, or first...

Hubby has been wanting pizza for awhile so I appeased him and we stopped here. They had weekday lunch specials until 3PM. Friendly staff, we were seated in the back. Not terribly busy.

Their pizzas come in 3 sizes: SM, MD, and LG. 20 cm, 26 cm, and I forget how big the large is.

We ordered a small gourmet and a medium traditional. Both were $15.00 for the lunch special. Normally the medium traditional is $22.00.

The order came out and both pizzas were smalls. I checked the wall for the sizes and measured, both pizzas were 20 cm. It took a bit to flag out waitress down because she was either in the back, behind the bar, or bringing pizzas out to guest.

Finally we got her attention, she checked the order she placed. It was for a SM and MD. The kitchen got it wrong. Instead of throwing out the incorrect one, they let us have it. The replacement medium came out quite quick.

The small gourmet was a hawaiian, and with red pepper flakes my hubby was happy. He ate almost the entire pizza. The small mistake and the medium we ordered were pepperoni. Instead of a cured pepperoni, they use a peppered salami. Technically not a pepperoni, but still tasty. Since I grew up eating salami, I enjoyed it.

The crust was not bad, could have maybe stayed in a minute or two longer. I like mine extra toasty, but it had a good taste. It was fluffy on the inside. Just the right amount of cheese.

We needed a box because it was just too much to finish. Took a while to get our waitress back. We should have just walked up...