Riverstone Kitchen — Restaurant in South Island

Riverstone Kitchen is a hidden Gem! Almost 20 Minutes north of Oamaru, on State Highway 1 just past the Oamaru Airport entrance. The restaurant has a beautiful “Country Kitchen” feel about it, The meals and their presentation are absolute exquisite.

For starter I had the half portion of Tomato Soup, which was absolutely delicious. My wife had the Fried Beetroot with Buffalo Curd. Neither of us had ever heard of “Buffalo Curd” before (which is apparently made from real Buffalo Milk and only available from a few suppliers in New Zealand. I asked for a small sample to try it out and the friendly waitress happily got us a sample to try. I was pleasantly surprised... it tastes a bit like sour cream, with a cream cheese texture. The name Curd doesn’t do it justice, and it tastes 100 times better than the name sounds.

For Mains we both had Venison which was as expected! Spectacular! Highly recommended. It’s served on a bed of lentils and fried onions and wilted spinach and other greenery. The word “Lentils” usually forces an involuntary movement to raise my nose in disapproval, but once again I was pleasantly surprised. The combination of perfectly cooked meat and garnish complimented each other beautifully, and I highly recommend you try it.

The generous portions of starters and mains made us feel like we could only share a desert. We decided to go for the Layered Chocolate Cake and Chocolate Sauce and Strawbery Sorbet. Once again, absolutely beautiful, and portioned enough for the wife, 4 year old and myself to share.

The Venue and gardens are beautifully manicured with a magnificent castle visible in the background. Apparently tours to the Castle are available, but need to be booked in advance. There is also a huge play section for the kids, with enough swings seesaws and a kiddies castle to keep them busy for hours. Their are few bird aviaries all around the garden with a few Apple Trees in the garden mix too.

All together it was well worth our drive up from Dunedin and a great venue and experience. I will definitely visit again. Thank you Riverstone kitchen team for a magic experience. Jason...

What a stunning place. I truly wish I could give more than five of five stars for this.

Firstly, the food is AMAZING. I often find that places have large menus but only do a few meals really well. Riverstone has a slightly smaller menu but they make up for it because everything on there, they do extremely well. I ordered the salt and pepper squid (image 1), and it was flawless. I was especially impressed with the salad that came with it- I often don't eat side salads because they taste limp and dull but the Asian greens served with the squid were delicious. I also got a chai latte (image 2), also very good.

I should also mention that my whole family is coeliac and can't eat gluten, and Riverstone did a great job accommodating us, with great gluten free alternatives.

The service is incredible. They must have a very good training program because the waiters are very friendly but professional, but also have great knowledge of the meals and what goes on in the kitchen (this is important for my coeliac family).

As for the grounds, they are like something from a fairy tale. There is a huge playground (image 4), featuring a huge wooden castle - very cool! And there are beautiful gardens surrounding the building (image 5 shows just some of the garden), some scenic, some with food. Did I mention they grow their own vegetables and everything? This gives the dishes a really fresh flavour. There is even and aviary.

The kitchen is accompanied by a few adorable wee shops with eclectic styles. Very good for gift ideas as the contents of the stores are pretty unique!

Overall, a truly wonderful experience that I would recommend very...

Beautiful decor, and an interesting setting with the garden and the shop there’s a lot to take in and explore! My husband and I enjoyed breakfast there this weekend and loved our truffle oil scrambled eggs with fresh sourdough bread. The meal was a larger portion than we both expected and it was well priced. I would have given a higher rating had it not been for a few sanitary points - as we were given water for the table the waitress carried the bottle with her hands around the neck and her thumb pressed right over the lip of the open bottle. In times of flu season, Covid and who knows what else my partner and I decided to forgo drinking the water because of this (especially as I am 35 weeks pregnant). It’s standard practice to hand any bottle over to customers by holding the base but I noticed all waitresses delivering water by clasping neck which as a former waitress I was taught is a big no no. The salt and pepper on the table was also sat in shallow dishes. They could have provided a fresh set for every customer but we didn’t want to assume, and we also didn’t want to dip our fingers into a shared bowl like this in case they weren’t changed between tables (which seems like it would be a waste of salt and pepper to me) and transfer any lingering germs directly onto our food. Other than these factors, it was a nice experience and we’d still go back to sample...