Franklins Bar & Eatery — Restaurant in Franklin

Franklins has become my favourite place (by far) in Franklin to eat and drink with friends. I’ve visited about four times in the last month and each time the service, kai and cocktails have been outstanding.

FOOD:

The ceviche is super fresh, slightly tangy, a little herby, lightly creamy and completely divine. My friend orders it every time without fail and I enjoy stealing bites off her plate when she’s not looking. As someone who doesn’t typically love raw fish, this is an absolute must try.

The gnocchi is super airy with just a little bite to it served with a very tender and saucy ragu. It’s a fairly big serving and my leftovers reheated the next day for lunch beautifully.

The prawn and scallop ravioli has a beautiful lemon sauce. Perfectly tangy with a lovely bite to the pasta and a meaty, textured filling. These seafood pockets were perfectly cooked and topped with a gorgeous fresh dill. It’s a very generous size for an entree too!

The prawn roll was my personal favourite - very reminiscent of the lobster rolls I indulged in during my recent trip to Hawaii. All of the elements - the buttery and slightly sweet brioche bun combined with the cooled and saucy prawns smothered in horse radish cocktail sauce, served with a side of crisps was perfection in my opinion.

Crispy cauliflower bites - wow. Another of my favourites. Indian inspired flavours, lightly battered, crunchy and delicious. My preferred substitute for fries!

Crispy rice cakes - I loved the Korean sauce which the rice cakes were absolutely lathered in, and the aioli balances out those strong flavours beautifully.

COCKTAILS:

The espresso martini was pitched to me by a friend as “the best espresso martini she’s ever had”. Well we’ve had our fair share of espresso martini’s in the last ten years of friendship, and to say I was sceptical is putting it lightly. So you can imagine my surprise when I took that first sip - and it was indeed the best espresso martini I’ve ever had. Chocolatey, slightly sweet to balance out the bitterness of the espresso - but not too sweet or even remotely sickly. When I tell you I could drink these by the dozen I am not joking, though I would not recommend this.

Cherry sour: woweeeee this was my favourite cocktail on the menu. I love a whisky sour but I tell you the cherry just brought it to life. The perfect balance of sweet and sour, packed with flavour, and honestly it just looks really pretty in the glass 🥹

SERVICE:

Every single time I have been to franklins the staff have been warm, friendly, quick to serve and just a great energy to be around. They’ve been informative when asked questions, they’re knowledgeable on the food and cocktails, and have been just an overall vibe. 10/10 guys - give yourselves a pat...

Used to come here semi regularly for a particular meal, sadly tonight was likely the last time. Unfortunately did not know the menu had changed as there was no mention of it on any social media and the online menu had not been updated so was disappointing to find out my favorite dish was no longer available - I understand menus can change and have no issue with this but thought that it would have been advertised on socials/the website for future diners.

I instead ordered the clams off the new menu which sounded nice but was not told it wasn’t actually available tonight and only found out when a bowl of mussels was brought over instead. Nothing else on the new menu caught my eye as it seems all of the staple menu items have had drastic changes with no options of substituting sides for other existing ones. My partner’s steak while tasting nice was well overcooked and not worth a nearly $50 price tag for a small scotch.

Pretty disappointing as we have always loved Franklins and were looking forwards to a nice Valentines dinner only for it to be a bit...

Took my partner here for dinner on his birthday recently, we were lucky we got there before 6pm so there were soooo many tables available. Service was so incredibly fast, all the staff were super lovely and helpful, the food and drinks were absolutely fantastic and the place just FELT nice to be in.

We highly, HIGHLY recommend the wagyu beef risotto balls, the crispy cauliflower (I had NO idea cauliflower could taste like that!!!), and even the side dish of local Pukekohe vegetables was insanely good. We thoroughly enjoyed our mains, we ended up getting the pulled pork burger and the fried chicken burger (we had planned to get things other than burgers, but we are so glad we tried the options we did). Everything we tried was absolutely incredible, we'd wanted to get dessert but by the time we'd finished our mains we were just too full 🤣

We are DEFINITELY heading back, and after seeing how the place accommodates for kids, we'll definitely be bringing the family next time. 10/10 guys, absolutely mind blowing, really made his birthday feel...