Caffe L'affare — Restaurant in North Island

With it being 12:30pm on a rainy Saturday, I was blown away by how well staff managed the influx customers. The business of this cafe is hands down a reflection of the quality of their service. We had to wait about 15 minutes for a table for two (understandable for that time of day) and was immediately greeted enthusiastically, welcomed and brought water by a staff member. She swiftly took our order, and our food was with us in less than 10 minutes.

I had seen on social media that all mocha's come with a complementary Whittakers sante bar, so obviously we got that. The concept of stirring the chocolate into the mocha and allowing it to melt was enjoyable, however the coffee itself wasn't quite hot enough. In hindsight, maybe we should have requested for it to be 'extra hot', however I believe this was just a one-off from the baristas as it was incredibly busy - I am certain their coffee would be delightful at a quieter point in the day (definitely an excuse to come back!) May I add, it was only $6.50 for the decently sized mocha alongside the sante bar and two marshmallows. A bargain if you ask me.

As for the food, I ordered the seed and nut granola which was absolutely loaded with greek yoghurt, a sweet berry compote and goji berries. Milk on the side was also available. I really enjoyed this meal. It was presented beautifully, and there was the perfect ratio of granola to yoghurt. For $16, it was definitely well worth it.

We also ordered the breakfast crumpets which came alongside a black dorris plum compote and cinnamon mascarpone. Within seconds, the crumpets were no where to be seen! They were so fluffy and light, and hands-down 100x better than store-brought crumpets. The flavours of the compote and mascarpone contrasted each other perfectly. I especially loved the mascarpone and will need a tub at home! The only negative of this meal was the presentation. Other people around us had ordered crumpets, which were displayed pristinely, however mine was sort of just a few crumpets soaked in moat of compote juice. Not sure what happened here, but no disregard to the chefs whatsoever. Its not about the looks, it's what's on the inside that counts, right?

Overall, we really enjoyed our experience at L'affare and will definitely return on a weekday when it may be slightly quieter. Awesome work...

I am not sure what has happened to this place, but the level of service has sadly dived in the past year. I stood at the door to be seated on a quiet weekday morning only to watched as waiter after waiter walked past with no acknowledgement. 5 minutes later, someone walked me to a table. I ordered a coffee and 15 minutes later someone came to take my order. The coffee hadn't been delivered, and I asked the waiter who took my order to follow it up. A second later, a woman who I suspect is the FoH manager, a larger woman with an accent, brought the coffee to my table. I said that I had sent the other waiter to follow it up and she sarcastically said "ah well, it's here now" and gave a little smirk and tried to walk off. I didn't let her get away with being rude so asked her what she meant, she rolled her eyes, said something curt and walked off. No concern for me as a customer. Later, the food turned up, a new waiter dropped it indifferently on the table, but I had to call her back as it was incomplete. She walked off. I called her back and asked her to take the incomplete plate away. This place used to have an excellent service culture. There is a new FoH manager here who is running it down. I will be...

Was quite disappointed with my meal and service, especially after seeing that this cafe had good reviews. They mixed up our orders and when the correct meal did arrive my eggs benedict was cold. The servers were also quite rude. When we politely explained that we had received the incorrect meals, the server rolled her eyes at us. Additionally, when we went to pay, my boyfriend started telling her what he had had. She interrupted to ask where we were sitting in an extremely irritated manner and raised her hands in the air to express her annoyance. We understand that they were busy but we were quite shocked by her blatant rudeness, we really didn't mean to put her out so much by relaying the contents of our order so we could pay. This isn't to say that all the servers were rude as one man who took our order was nice enough. It's just a shame that a couple of people really made us feel unwanted there and we walked out feeling pretty flat. I understand we are all human and we have bad days and, clearly, these servers were feeling stressed and/or tired but I don't think it's fair to take that out on others who are only after a...