The Gintrap Restaurant & Bar — Restaurant in Napier

We came for dinner on Good Friday 2/04/21, me and my partner are both vegan and when we called ahead to book a table and ask if they had some food options and both got even more excited when the lovely wait staff said she would quickly check their vegan menu for our options.

We arrived and again the lovely wait staff helped us pick great gin and tonic matches, caught me accidentally ordering something not vegan ( Broccoli bites ) which we greatly appreciated.

Our starter of bread and dips and our gin was perfect and we were excited for our mains. This is where the night for us ended. Please keep in mind I always appreciate a restaurant that goes out of their way to cater for my dietary requirements and am usually not one to complain I have had my fair share of average meals.

My partner ordered the pumpkin pizza, it looked and tasted like it was a defrosted gluten free pizza base that came presauced out of the packet. There was a single small cubed piece of pumpkin on each slice of pizza. There was a very tiny serving of vegan cheese spread sparingly around the pizza covering some wilted spinach and for some reason a cup of pine nuts just thrown on their for good measure. I promise you I’ve not left out a single ingredient.. that was all that was on there. Now like I’ve said I’ve had my fair share of average food , but this pizza takes the cake. We didn’t request a gluten free pizza, neither of us are intolerant to it. If your regular pizza dough contains something not vegan (dairy, egg) then I understand, but if not, PLEASE feed us your regular bases. Gluten is not from an animal I promise.

I ordered the Kumara Burger, I can say it was at least a step up from the Pizza , again I’m convinced I was served gluten free buns. If your buns were brioche and or had dairy or eggs I can understand, however looking around at the other burgers they just looked like white bread burger buns. The Kumara Rosti which was my pattie was 1/2 the size of my toasted bun (literally imagine 2 slices of toast) which leads me to believe it was defrosted, as the other buns looked nice, fluffy and soft. The flavours in burger were ok though so at least I was able to eat my meal. My burger also came with chips which were perfect.

I do really appreciate the thought Gintrap but I’m being serious when I say if you don’t make some changes to the Vegan Pizza and Burger then please just remove them from your menu, they are a disappointing to contrast to every other part of the experience.

The friendly service and caring staff are...

Despite fairly high prices even by New Zealand standards, the management here are too stingy to let customers use WiFi.

Waitress used the old "oh, its to stop people sitting on their phones" excuse which I found insulting since I just wanted to google something in our conversation, not sit on my phone and I don't have a New Zealand SIM as I'm on holiday. Just be honest and say "We are too stingy to share with paying customers or too lazy to change the password periodically. A good idea would be to call the SSID 'office' instead of 'Gintrap'........and also put a cell blocker if you are all so concerned about people using their phones since locals were using their phones all around us.

One of the three ladies who were serving, with short hair and glasses has no peripheral vision, we were waving our arms 10degrees from her 12 o'clock, we thought she saw as she looked, then she walked towards us ...... then over to other people, plus failed to hear.

Anyway, the food made up for the poor service. Seafood soup was perfect, prawn salad was amazing. I loved the mushroom risotto balls even though they were a bit too salty. Bravo chef, boo to the three waitresses and manager/owner for the service and lack of WiFi. That alone made us move on immediately after our meal so you missed out on 6 beers just because of petty stingyness;...

As soon as we walked into the restaurant we felt the ambience of the place. The decor was well thought out; it gives the feeling of fine dining, but with a sense of casual/comfortable and relaxing. We were greeted straight away at the door and shown to our seat shortly after. The tables are set so beautifully, with nice cutlery and glasses, condiments and a lovely candle to enhance the calming and relaxing atmosphere of the surroundings. The service was perfect; smiling, friendly and timely. We felt looked after by our waitress. She stopped to chat with us as we asked her where we could go to dance later on. She was very knowledgeable about places in Napier, and the late nightlife that we could go and enjoy later. Our food was beautifully cooked and well presented. Our favourite was the perfectly cooked and delicious medium rare scotch fillet steak. We didn't wait long for our drinks. The barman was a friendly and quirky chap from England; he brought our drinks over that we ordered at the bar. The bathroom was modern, clean, tidy and spacious which all of us ladies appreciate. We were so grateful that we were also offered free parking. We would definitely come back to enjoy the Gintrap again. Thank you for your classy Manaakitanga...