Noble Rot Wine Bar — Restaurant in North Island

With great excitement, I was all ready to confirm a booking at Noble Rot for my second Vegan six course degustation dinner experience when I received a phone call from a Noble Rot staff member that over the course of just ten days (the time since my first Noble Rot Vegan six course degustation dinner experience) the price of that degustation dinner had increased by forty dollars ($40)! I did not hesitate an instant and immediately cancelled the reservation.

I was impressed with my first Noble Rot Vegan degustation dinner experience and believed I had found a trustworthy restaurant. Not the case. Simple business 101 standard practice says that high quality products must be backed by excellent service. And this has to be consistent over the life of a business.

The Noble Rot online and printed menus list the six course degustation dinner at one hundred and ten dollars ($110). Jacking up the price of this $110 dinner by $40, is a bizarre and clearly amateur business decision. Instead of this restaurant review being a permanent imprint of negativity and a reminder of Noble Rot's absence of effective quality management, simply honouring the published dinner price would have seen me enthusiastically rocking up to the restaurant, smiling, eagerly awaiting the presentation of each course and telling the online community and close friends how wonderful Noble Rot is.

It's not easy for a business to simultaneously spit the dummy and chuck the toys out of the cot, but in the world of infant-class enterprises, Noble Rot has this tantrum down and has triumphed.

You never know when Noble Rot will randomly try to shred an unassuming and trusting customer's wallet with a thirty-six percent (36%) price increase, so to avoid disappointment, give Noble Rot a huge miss and stay clear of it well...

Went here to celebrate my partner's birthday and had a very bad experience. We came with a little kid and sommelier was very annoyed about this, even though I mentioned this in my reservation comments, when we asked for a degustation menu we were told that it could take quite long and they booked a table for us only for 1h45mins, which was never mentioned to us, and it is very strange especially since I mentioned in the reservation comment that we are coming for a special occasion. So they said that they can do it but it have to be fast since we should leave the place after hour and 45 minutes, we agreed on this. when it came to choosing wine, sommelier wasn't helpful at all, behaved very annoyed and arrogant, left our table in the middle of conversation and came back later, didn't try to help to choose wine, and when we made our choice, just filled glasses without giving us a try. Food was average, we didn't like 6 course menu, oysters were good and the wine, but other than that we were dissapointed, not even close to fine dining, especially the service. at the end we received a birthday dessert, which looked like a joke, experience would be better if there was none. We had such a lovely day but choosing this place for celebration was a mistake. Should mention that waitress was a really nice lady and tried her best. Also my partner found out on social media, that it's probably only ours dessert was that special, on photos of other guests they had a proper dessert. So I guess it depends...

The wine selection is incomparable to anywhere else we've been in NZ. If you're missing the terroir of home, you can find something to please the palate here. Tasteful, modern decor create an upscale and relaxed vibe. The servers are knowledge about the wine making process as well as having a good understanding of their menu. They, also serve food. We've mainly stuck to cheeses as they have a good local variety. update* Tonight we visited to try the six course degustation. The amuse-bouche was chicken liver parfait in a pastry which was too heavy for the mousse. The coconut in the first dish dominated the remaining flavours. The 2nd was a seaweed crumpet with a creamy prawn which tasted very similar to a bagel with lox. The 3rd dish had heavy cheese flavored pastries, caramelized onions, and other uninspiring flavors. The 4th was an aged beef with a sauce of tomato and hot sauce which had a strange bland, creamy texture. The 5th dish was a flame burnt cheese presented as a cheese platter creme brulee with maple syrup. It's not good. The finale, a chocolate mousse was only made good by a blast of berry in the middle but the remaining dessert was a bit boring. Overall the meal was a mishmash of different flavours none of which were well integrated or showed great innovation. I'm disappointed because this is a very good wine bar but they'd do better to offer a menu of high end appetizers and standards with their delicious...