Mission Estate Restaurant — Restaurant in Napier

My wife and I went to a "Great Gatsby's 100th Birthday Party" event last Saturday night, organised be the Mission Estate Winery. The price was high ($250 each), the expectations were high, but the execution was very poor! It felt like a lot of corners were cut. We were greeted by a glass of bubbles, which was nice. We were given a voucher each to get a free gin and tonic, which I tried to redeem at a bar. After waiting for a bar girl for five minutes, I was told that I had to go to a different bar located outside instead. As for food, a so called "Grazing Menu Dinner" consisted of four types of canapes delivered by teenage boys and girls, who didn't really know what they were doing (as expected) and nobody from the senior staff seemed to be giving them any guidance. We had to ask for canapes, because everyone was walking past us as if we were invisible. There were also two food stations - a Seafood Chowder station and an Eye Fillet + Roasted Potatoes station that EVERYBODY had to queue up for!!! No salads or anything else to go with it either! Instead, it should've been a big table inside the hall with far more options of food to choose from. There was supposed to be a cake at the end, but my wife and I left way before that as we couldn't even imagine queuing up for that as well! Oh and there was also a so called "circus performance", a kind of performance that you would expect to see at a strip club and not at a high end establishment like the Mission Estate! We heard other guests complaining about it as well. Two stripper look alike ladies were wrapping themselves around the hoola hoop one after the other doing exactly the same act!!! I have to agree, it was a circus indeed! All in all, it was NOT worth $250 a ticket, queuing up for a piece of eye fillet and some roast potatoes. The least you could offer is more food options to choose from. For this sort of money, you can have a nice three course dinner for two at the very same establishment on an ordinary night, including a nice bottle of Mission wine. Whoever the organiser of this event was, owns an apology to all the guests attending this cheap looking, but rather...

We ate at the Mission Estate Winery for dinner, and had an incredible experience!

The Mission Estate Winery is the oldest winery in New Zealand. It was founded by French missionaries who brought grape vines with them when they came in 1838. The French missionaries established a mission station in 1851 in the Hawkes Bay region, and that was the beginning of the Mission Estate Winery. The building and the surrounding landscaping are beautiful. There are also great views of the city and grapevines in the background.

The restaurant has both indoor and outdoor seating. We sat outside as it was a beautiful night.

Service was fantastic--attentive, but not intrusive. Our waiter was very informative and able to answer all of our questions.

We ordered two of their wines to accompany our dinner, a cabernet/merlot for my husband and a pinot noir for me. Both were excellent. We ended up coming back the next day to buy a bottle of the cabernet/merlot as a gift.

We ordered the garlic, truffle and cheese ciabetta, which was flavorful and had a lot of cheese. I ordered the seafood chowder as my starter. We have been travelling in New Zealand for the past 5 weeks, and I have ordered seafood chowder several times--this was the BEST seafood chowder I have had in New Zealand. My husband ordered the lamb loin as his main and I ordered the Hawkes Bay Fresh fish of the day. Both were excellent--the fish was flaky and flavorful, while my husband's lamb was served with a wine jus and wonderful. We also ordered the potato doughnuts for the table, and they were SO good! We finished up our meal with the salted caramel truffles--six homemade truffles that were amazing!

We would highly recommend the Mission Estate restaurant for a delicious dinner in a...

The last time we went was two years ago and for two years I was a raving fan. So last Saturday we went again with large expectations and a hunger for great food. Our night started with the drink order, which ended with "Oh sorry we are out of champagne, but what about a sparkling Riesling". Ok, things like this can happen. So it is a warm summer night, our water glasses were empty within 10 minutes. Despite a large army of waiters and bar staff, the glasses were only refilled with prompting. The starters were served and indeed they were good, really good. Just before the mains were served, the next wine was served and decantered in front of us, while serving the wine got dribbled over the white linen, without apologies or anything. The mains being served and one of the waitresses comes to us to explain that the kitchen stuffed up the food and we have to wait another 10 minutes with half of the mains on the table. It was worth waiting for the wagyu steaks. But then the lamb who were ordered on suggestion by the kitchen medium rare - got served in excess of well done. The cheese platter for two was good, but very minimalistic. The tiramisu was just not there, where it should be. So we left with slight disappointment as the service didn't improve. But the bill was a grand. Last disappointment of the night was the promised dial a driver, which apparently doesn't operate any longer. Your problem...