Leonardo's Italian Food & Wine — Restaurant in North Island

On my fourth day in New Zealand, we were supposed to be having one of the best planned itinerary in our trip. Halfway through the day, the youngest member caught cold bug and had to be hospitalised.. missing one of the tour was not really that important but the fact that it drained our energy and affected our mood. Luckily she put up a strong face and after 4 hours she was discharged. Feeling hungry, I fired up Google to find place to eat.

As a matter of fact the only food that they all could agree on was pizza so Italian restaurant it was. Many options but we settled for the nearest to us with good ratings. Located at Eat Street Rotorua, we decided against dining alfresco due to the cold weather. As it was weekday, not many diners were seen and therefore we got undivided attention from the waiter who served us.

◾Risotto con Granchio - crab, chili, chive and sweet pea risotto, parmesan and prosciutto crisp NZ$26.50 was the best money spent! The risotto was brimming with the sweetness from the crustacean while the crispy parmesan prosciutto provided extra crunch to the otherwise soft texture of the Italian rice. ◾Insalata caprese NZ$15.50 - with cured prosciutto, horopito and basil oil, balsamic reduction and croutons. ◾Margarita NZ$18.00 - a classic Italian pizza done right with Napoli sauce, cherry tomato, mozzarella, fresh basil, and olive oil. Thin crispy crust with generous cheese and tomato toppings but the happiest part was to see how the little ones gobbled up everything ◾House pouring white wine - badly need this to sooth the feeling after the blardy incident.

A plan of just stopping by for a quick dinner turned out to be one of the best meal of the entire trip due to the setback earlier in the day and the fact that the weather was...

Went to Leonardo with my family last Sunday night, around 8:30. Even though there were plenty of tables free, as we sat down the waiter told us that we'd have to wait 40-45mins, no problem we said. We asked for the menu's and ordered quickly both food and drinks. A couple of minutes after, the waiter comes back and says two of the dishes were not available, we ordered something else. It was a bit noisy outside so we moved in inside, where she had told us there was wifi, noone knew the network or the password... so no wifi, no problem. By this points (20 mins after arrival) the drinks were not yet served, one of us had to go to the bar and bring it to the table. Right after that, 3 different waiters came to take the order (they had no clue we had already ordered). When finally one of them realises they were a mess, comes and offers my sister a beer "on the house" (she was the only one drinking tap water). She wasnt really keen but said, yes the BRB IPA please. 3 minutes after the waiter came back with a pint of Peroni... OK. Then another waiter comes informing that there were no mussels for the pasta, asking if we would want something else instead in it, OK... we asked for prawns instead of the mussels. Finally the food was served and it was OK. We asked for the bill and to our surprise the beer "on the house" WAS CHARGED !!! We did pay for it as we wanted to leave by this point. But one of us approached the manager and asking why would the charge the beer (which wasnt even the IPA we ordered!) and he was blaming the system !!! Swearing that it might have been a mistake from the system. Totally ridiculous. Do not recommend to go to this place, givem them some time to sort...

I have to start by saying we were very disappointed by the meal we had here.

When we arrived, we were told that we could be waiting 45 minutes from ordering until we got our food. We didn't think this would be a problem, and got a table.

We ordered a few starters, including a gluten free bruschetta. We also ordered our mains at this point.

An hour later we got one of our starters, which was the chips with lamb, and to be fair this was very nice. We then waited another 20 minutes to get another starter out, which was meant to be gluten free. It wasn't, and this had to be queried with the restaurant staff. Only after this was it taken away and eventually replaced with a gluten free version. The other starter never arrived, eventually (90 minutes after sitting down down) we asked for this to be cancelled.

30 minutes later (2 hours at this point) two pizzas arrived out. They were rubbery and we did our best with them, but they were not nice at all. 20 minutes after that another pizza came out. My father in law was still waiting for his dinner, a chicken dish. It came only after asking about it, and it was freezing (it was supposed to be hot). Finally the last meal arrived (a salmon salad, it was tepid).

At this point we had had enough, and asked to speak to the manager. To say he was rude about the experience would be an understatement. He tried to offer 10% off the bill, but wanted to charge for parts of the meal that never arrived or that were cold/inedible. He kept saying it was our fault as we were told there would be a wait.

This meal was awful. By far the worst meal we have had out in...