Saltwater - Restaurant — Restaurant in North Island

Sensational seafood from raw kingfish sashimi and tuna carpaccio to wood fired BBQ Hapuka and deep fried calamari.

After a Sunday arvo walk around the sleepy (almost deserted) centre of Tauranga we had a few reservations about our upcoming dinner a 10 min drive away in Mount Maunganui. The $20 Taxi ride was well worth it.

The street has an abundance of eateries, cafes and and an eclectic range of shops, but the standout is the Saltwater. Open, airy, clean and spacious with a relaxed and friendly vibe from both front and back of house staff.

The open kitchen with its spectacular wood fired BBQ is contrasted by a sashimi/cold seafood prep area and two glass doors (dry aging cabinets?) hanging impressive cuts of Beef and Fish.

Food : Fresh products, lovingly and professionally prepared to a 5 star standard - in fact probably better than a lot of "big city" restaurants that charge significantly more.

The wine selection is diverse, impressive and reasonable value for money in bottle and by the glass (we had the 2021 Ata Rangi Pinot, whilst a bit young in 2023 it opened up nicely and was lovely with our Seafood selections.

Overall a great dining experience enhanced by a chance encounter with some like minded folks that prompted some great conversation and a few post dinner...

The food was alright, we got the seafood boil and oysters. When we walked in we asked how much how many oysters you get for $6 (the price on their menu) and our server told us we got 6. We had an amazing time all was good until we went to pay our bill. WE HAD BEEN CHARGED $6 dollars per oysters. Not only are they so stupidly overpriced but our server gave us false information which proceeded to make us think we could afford all the oysters we got. Very disappointed in the pricing and the false information. Would love to see a change in both and would love to get like $108 dollars worth of oysters back for the false information. Might I add when we went to tell the man at the till we had be told wrong he told us no… and still charged us for this outrageous amount we didn’t know of. Also don’t get us started on the seafood boil, the taste was ok and the crab had no meat. When we cracked open the crab had around an 1/8 of a mouthful worth of meat in the claws. The rest was just shell basically. We also received 3 prawns and an halfcooked potato. You might aswell call it a muscle boil. We thought with the good reviews it would have been better. Both me and my girlfriend were proved wrong and are VERY disappointed. DONT...

We were so excited to try out Saltwater and especially the seafood boil. While it was tasty, we ordered it for 3 people @ $55 each so we were disappointed and a little surprised to only receive 2 pieces of crab and 2 pieces of corn that were so small we couldn’t share them between the 3 of us. The mussels were also tiny and sadly over cooked, as were the clams which meant they were quite chewy. The sashimi plate was nice but also very small for $49, as was the lobster bun - my daughter ate it in 3 bites. One of our party enjoyed his gin cocktail, but my daughter couldn’t even drink her nonalcoholic “Kiss from a Rose” cocktail which we all tried, and agreed was not very nice, and my apple cider was bland. I’d like to say the atmosphere made up for it but we were a family seated beside a group who had clearly been there a while and they made talking between ourselves impossible because of their loudness and frequent “f bombs”. We eventually asked to move but our moods were affected so it brought down the whole experience. The staff were friendly and helpful, hence my 3 stars instead of 2, but overall the experience and meal were largely disappointing so sadly we...