Milk & Honey Restaurant — Restaurant in Napier

We went here for yesterday’s lunch at around 11:40 am. One of the waitresses told us to wait for 5 minutes so she can clear out some tables. We did not mind as we understand it’s a busy time. 16 minutes passed and we’re still standing outside in the heat with a very hungry 6 year old and a 1 year old. I started the timer.

11:56am - went inside to follow-up with the same waitress and she ferried us on one of the outside tables. Was told that menu will be brought outside.

12:04pm - finally got the menu after I got up and went inside again to get it from the same waitress

12:10pm - waited for the same waitress to come back but she didn’t. So my wife walked in to go to the waitress to give our order. Waitress realized that the menu she gave us were dinner menus! Again, waited for another 4 minutes or so for the lunch menus.

12:15pm - lunch menus arrived. Progress. Waitress said she’ll be back to take our order.

12:20pm - said waitress didn’t come back so the wife walked back in to find her to give her our order from the lunch menu. Waitress wrote down including the drinks. Promised to be right out to put water in our table. Yay! Slow-cooked pork, ramen noodles, bacon fries and coconut water. Advertised waiting time was 20mins. No worries.

12:40pm - no food arrived. 12:46pm - waiting game 12:47pm - 6y.o.: “feed me, feed me” 12:48pm - time to go back inside to find any signs of life. 12:52pm - was told there were no orders made on our behalf. Beaten and downtrodden.

12:53pm - talked to the nice manager, the only person there who seemed to be welcoming. She was apologetic of the situation as she scoured through the pile of poorly jotted pieces of papers I can only gather as food orders from other waiting customers not as patient as we were. The unforgiving waitress who earlier entertained us helped in sifting through the orders but to no success. No time to waste, I repeated my order in front of the crowd looking curiously hoping to get it through the kitchen gods. Plus the quickest food they can get out (fries).

12:58pm - got the fries. 6y.o. have been appeased, for now.

1:12pm - another waitress came out with the mythical food. Success.

The slow-cooked pork and bacon fries were absolute winners. The kitchen gods must be rewarded for the love of their craft. Too bad it’s outperformed by the poor quality of service.

If you don’t value your time and have the patience to deal with trainees then go dine in here. However, I wouldn’t recommend this to tourist with not enough time as well as to parents...

The worst service ever! We came here for dinner on my birthday and I wish we had gone somewhere else. When I made the reservation I was asked if it was for a special occasion. I wrote “birthday” but I don’t even understand why the question was asked as the staff had done nothing to acknowledge this. The service was one of the worst I’ve ever experienced. The girl who served us could not even smile and took ages to bring out menus and never checked on us if we needed anything during our dinner. She expressed no enthusiasm and just seemed like she hated her job. There was zero ambience inside. Bright lights and some kind of techno music which just sounded like a low noise in the background. I mean how hard can it be? I asked to have the lights dimmed but the manager said no! Shocking. The food tasted ok apart from the pizza which could have been a store bought frozen pizza. The presentation was embarrassing. The dumplings were sitting dry on a plate with the sauce on the side. Is it that hard to chuck some spring onions, chilli, sesame seeds on top? It was seriously annoying. Nobody came to ask us during the dinner if we needed anything or if the food tasted good. When I went up to pay I asked if the pizza was frozen or made fresh to point out that it was terrible but the guy just answered my question as if he thought it was a serious question, not a hint that it tasted disgusting. A service minded waiter would in my mind have answered the question something like this: it’s made fresh. Can I ask, was anything wrong? If you weren’t happy I’d really like to know. Definitely won’t be coming back. It’s disappointing it had to be on...

Food insanely tasty - service appalling. We went as a big group for a celebration having heard good things about the food. Unfortunately, the service really let's this place down. Extremely unfriendly waiting staff that make you feel like you're an inconvenience. Our party arrived in two groups ten minutes apart, and the rudeness of the waitress when we hadn't decided our food choices after a few minutes was, frankly, laughable. Despite us being made to feel like we were keeping them all up (it was 9pm on a Friday evening), they took 30 minutes to clear our starter plates even though there was only one other table, and we had to go up to the bar to order more drinks because the table service was so rude and inattentive. In particular, the Argentinian waitress just should not be in a job that requires polite customer service - we could not imagine a more disdainful waitress. Such a shame for the kitchen staff, who made some of the BEST food we've had - the spicy fried chicken and the duck being particular favourites. If they did takeaway and you could avoid the front of house staff - perfect. Milk and honey need to up their service game...