Amici Italian cafe and restaurant — Restaurant in North Island

This place should be taken off Quality Street! I'm never going back there again. Waitress was clueless, kept coming to our table every 2 minutes until we ordered despite quite clearly being engrossed in our menus, had to tell her to just come back in 5 minutes because it was so pestering, and when we answered her question she would just leave immediately, no response or acknowledgement of our order. When the food came, which I will give it to them, did come quickly, it was highly unsatisfactory. The chicken prugna pizza that my date ordered looked like it came out of a supermarket, and not the good New World ones, and on top of this, it tasted worse than one. The base was doughy, thin, and burnt all at the same time, the chicken was well overcooked to where bits of it were very chewy/ crunchy, and it didn't taste like it had brie cheese despite advertising that, at least not enough to justify claiming it as one of the main ingredients. It was plain, dissapointing, and a scam to say that we paid $22 for it. Onto my meal, I had the beef calzone, which at first was good as I ate from the crust, but I later found was the best part of the meal. The beef was questionably cooked on account of it being pink/red, which beef is able to be but still isn't the most heartening thing to have your meat look like. Beyond this there isn't much to say about it, it had the same crust doughyness as the pizza, and the mince was quite frankly - plain. It tasted no better than a mince toastie, I've probably made better Toasties as a kid than that calzone I had. Finally, to top it all off, when I was paying the guy said it was $67.60. I got the money ready, and asked that it was sixty seven dollars, and he replied with 'sixty', which in hindsight I can see could have been him adding on the sixty cents, but such a short response made it seem like it were $60 and not $67, after starting to put back the seven I looked over and saw written down 67.60 and I said 'oh so it is $67' and he said 'yes'. The whole while he was watching me count out the money in front of him and said nothing. Overall just a shocking experience, Amici's is but a shell of it's former self, and as with all things, the Indians ruined yet another classic...

Terrible Food and Disappointing Service – Never Again

My partner and I chose Amici for dinner after seeing its 4-star rating on Google and reading that it’s one of the “warmest dine-in restaurants in Whangārei.” While the fireplace by our table certainly lived up to the warm ambiance, that was the only thing that did.

To start, we ordered drinks: an espresso martini for my partner and a lemon, lime & bitters for me. The martini was, without exaggeration, undrinkable—it had an awful taste that made me gag after one sip. We’ve tried this cocktail at many places, and this was by far the worst. My drink was fine, though clearly just a bottled version poured straight into a glass with no garnish or effort.

For starters, we ordered the Bruschetta di Funghi. The bread was dry and floury, and the sautéed mushrooms were overly salty—honestly, it tasted like a recipe for hypernatremia.

Then came the mains. I had the sirloin steak, which I requested medium-rare. What I received was a piece of meat so tough it felt like chewing rubber—completely inedible. The flavor was bland, like water with a splash of soy sauce. The sides were forgettable. I ended up trying my boyfriend’s prosciutto-wrapped chicken thigh, which was, again, far too salty.

To top it all off, as we were paying, we were still asked if we wanted to leave a tip—despite most of the food and drinks left untouched on our table. It felt like a scripted routine, but even the waitress seemed to sense our disappointment.

We left hungry and frustrated. After checking again, we noticed that most recent reviews are also 1-star—unlike older ones. Clearly, something has changed. Management seriously needs to reevaluate what’s happening in the kitchen and improve both food quality and service.

We won’t...

Really disappointed. Arrived just before 7.00pm.tiook a little while to be seated. We were seated outside. Handed menus. Then took a long time to come and take our orders. I had wanted to order Salmon from the specials board and the waitress said "oh were you not told the fish is not available when you were seated" I watched many people seated after us and they were definitely not told either and i saw many people studying up the special board. I don't understand why they didn't just wipe it off the board! We were bought out our drinks. And then waited for a long time. We saw some people leave who had been seated after us and we were now getting a little fed up with the wait time. A waitress turned their open signs on the door to closed which was a waste of time as it wasn't visible on an open door. They were turning people away even though they had plenty of empty tables. Just after 8.00pm when we ahd finishedoour dirnks hubby decided to go in and see how long away our meal would be and was told they hadn't even started cooking it. So we decided to leave and go else where. We also saw some others who had been there before us also leave once we were leaving. Maybe they were short staffed or busier than expected. But customer service was shocking. They should have been advising customers before they were seated that they were busy. Has put us off going back. Customer service should...