The Jayas Wine Bar — Restaurant in North Island

This relatively new restaurant and wine bar might just be another one of Wellington's best-kept secrets! We were dining out on our wedding anniversary and so pleased we landed on The Jaya's who helped to make the night special. Settling on the small plates to share was perfect - we both kept commenting on the flavours. It would be hard to choose a favourite as each plate offered something new, all elegantly presented. This is food clearly influenced by a family with the love of great food - I love it that the mains are described in the menu as: "MUM’S LOVE - Thank you, Mummy for your love and mouth-watering food recipes". While hard to pick a favourite, we particularly loved the "Jaya’s Papdi Chaat" - mouthwateringly good! All our plates though, were delicious (we also had Pork Dumpling, Awadh ka Chicken,and When Eggplant Met Tandoor - you could smell the smoke and flames as it was being char-grilled prepped out the back). As a wine bar specialising in New Zealand wines, there was an excellent range and we both tried a wine we'd not had before and would not normally choose - our waiter guided us and clearly knew a great deal about the winery and options for good food matches. Dessert is always important to me and the Gulab Jamun to finish the meal (Gulab jamun, sugar syrup, pistachio with Zelati ice cream) hit the spot for me! Thank you to The Jaya's (who we understand were on-site prepping the food early in the day)! We both went away so pleased with our dining experience and both said,...

The two items in the posted menu that attracted us both turned out to be unavailable due to no tandoori oven. (This meant no naan as well.) We debated leaving then, but decided to stay due to friendly service and a pleasant atmosphere. Unfortunately, the chaat starter was a big disappointment, served between store-bought Ritz-like crackers, like 4 sandwich cookies. (See photo) The server assured us the crackers were bought at an Indian store, but that wasn't the point. Where was the homemade crackers, fresh-fried papdi? The mint and tamarind chutneys dollops on top and bottom were tasty, but only as expected and not beyond what I buy bottled. He also implied the mushiness was my fault for not eating in one bite (which my husband did with the same thoughts as me). A salmon main course was the highlight of the meal, tasty and colorful. The chickpeas with rice vegetarian "main dish" was an underwhelming plate of brown and white, minimal garnish provided the only dusting of green color, seasoned ok, but nothing remarkable and overpriced for what was at best a few dollars of ingredients. Wines were nice, but not memorable. Pretty atmosphere and low music were biggest selling points. Next time, I think we'd stick to wine and a...

This is a review under a First Table booking (which gets you 50% off all food items), and right off the bat - the food is on the pricier side when paying full price ($15+ for appetisers, $30+ for mains).

I wouldn't have minded this usually, but the service was at a glacial pace. We arrived at 6pm and only received food menus by 6:30pm. We ordered the Jalapeno Poppers and the Squid, which arrived half an hour later.

We also ordered their 'Awadh ka Chicken' which I was told was going to take 20 minutes to prepare - it arrived at a very late 7:30pm (almost a whole hour later). At this point, we didn't want to risk waiting the same time (or more) for ordering mains, so we just paid and left.

The only reason it's not getting a 1-star is because of the host was very friendly and attentive to our needs drinks-wise, that and the chicken dish was phenomenal. I'm not sure if we came in at a particularly bad time, since most of the other customers were experiencing these wait...