Five Stags Leamington Tavern — Restaurant in North Island

I dont often leave poor reviews, as i like to think everyone can have a bad day, but my families dinner tonight was worthy of a review. We chose this restaurant based on Google reviews and photos.

First, the really bad. When we arrived, we sat at a table. After a few minutes it became apparent that there were no servers, so we went up to the bar to order. Ordered 4 drinks, 4 dinners. I was a bit concerned when I asked for my steak to be cooked medium rare, to be told it comes the way it comes, you cannot specify. But, give the benefit of the doubt, I hoped for the best. We carried our own drinks to the table. We usually order a glass of water to go with our other drinks and dinner. Had to go up to the bar and pour my own. Had to ask for more water as there wasn't enough to fill 4 glasses. The servers brought out dinner, but I had to go back up to the bar to get forks, knives and napkins. Kids meals came with dessert. Had to go up to ask for it too, which took another 16 minutes to cook. If this was a fast food restaurant, I would not have complained, but this is not MacDonalds.

The good-ish. I had the steak sandwhich which was delicious. Although I did have to look to find the steak...there might have been 3 ounces of steak. The burger was OK. The kids meal was so salty they could barely eat it. The churros dessert was so dry and overcooked it was almost inedible. Even dipped in the chocolate sauce and ice cream it was like bitting into dry sand.

Overall, we would not go back, which was so disappointing as the pictures online...

Where to start? They said on the website they were open until 10 PM, but when we came in for food quite a bit before 10 PM they said they had closed the kitchen already and we could only have the bar menu. OK, then, let’s go with the bar menu. We were starving and had been traveling from Auckland, and needed some food. I ordered a small deep-fried platter, which was supposed to have samosas and prawn twisters and onion rings and spring rolls and fries. It was $35, and it noted that it served 2 to 4 people, so we were really expecting a bonanza of food. What arrived was a platter that was mostly fries. There were a few spring rolls and samosas, but they were all too deeply deeply fried. The samosas were really small, and the shrimp twisters were small and really over fried as well.

When I asked the bartender about some of the ABV of the beers, he didn’t seem to know what I was talking about. I wanted a higher ABV IPA and when I told him what that was, he still didn’t really seem to be much help, so I just asked about the two IPAs and he said he could not recommend one over the other, so I just picked one. He seemed to really not be interested in helping us. To the point where I would say he was a little grumpy.

The music was good. People seemed to really be enjoying it, and it really felt like a local’s bar. I think we would’ve enjoyed the whole experience a lot more if we weren’t starving (and the platter was not disappointing) and if the bartender had been a bit...

I used to love bringing my parents to dinner here when I came back to visit. The atmosphere has always been good and it still is. Unfortunately, depending on which staff you get, hospitality is less than great. My last visit we waited over an hour for our food and when we asked it just so happened to be ready. It came out like-warm, chips in the poutine were soggy. When asking how long food has sat for staff were defensive. They did check with their chefs and claimed no more than 5 minutes sitting. But as mentioned food was like warm with parts of my carbonara cold leaving me with a touch of doubt. Food has also seemed to go down hill - ribs are less meaty and more dry than what I remembered. The only reason I've gone for two stars is that the food still tastes good but just doesn't feel the same anymore. The worst part for me is how good I remember the place being, but it seems I'll be finding a new spot to rely on in the future. This is just my 2 cents and I wish the staff and ownership all the...