Amigos Wanaka — Restaurant in South Island

We dined at Amigos this evening, Tuesday 9th February. We had a booking at 7:30pm and walked into a busy restaurant. We had concerns at the outset when one guest was complaining about not receiving there churros or ice cream that they ordered. The waitress seemed very flustered and sat us at our table, albeit in a rush. Our drinks and starters order was taken promptly and we were given 5 minutes before we ordered our mains. The waitress said the kitchen was very busy and there would be a wait on our food. Unfortunate to hear and really sets the precedent. I can’t imagine it was a busy night “out of the blue” and that’s how the service normally runs.

After a 50 minute wait we asked if our food would be far away and they said it was coming. A couple of minutes later our mains came out but no starters.

The food was very undesirable. Pork ribs were dry, the bbq sauce was bland and the sauce for the kumara skins was split. Tacos were tasteless, dry and full of red onion. Was looking forward to the fried chicken but that obviously didn’t come out. They also put down an extra taco which we said we hadn’t ordered and that was taken away. Very underwhelming. Especially for how great it used to be.

When I told the waitress about our experience she asked if I could speak to the manager which I did. Not surprisingly it was the first I’d seen of her for the hour and 15 minutes we were there. I’m not sure how you manage a restaurant that does 200 covers if you’re stuck behind a bar?

When I paid the bill the extra taco was void but there were no voided starters which i assume means they were never put through in the first place. Again if the manager had been on the floor and there was some form of communication, she may have noticed we had been waiting for so long and that we hadn’t had starters.

The margaritas were really good but the Mojito tasted like lime cordial.

Unfortunately a very disappointing experience. And from the atmosphere I think a lot of other diners tonight would have got the same. Severe lack of management, staff were out of control and I assume the kitchen was the same?!

It is very disappointing when you spend over $100...

I dined 15 mins ago at Amigos, a Mexican restaurant, and unfortunately, my experience left much to be desired. Upon entering, my party and I were met with a noticeable lack of hospitality. Despite the restaurant being far from busy, with only two other occupied tables, the staff seemed indifferent and failed to acknowledge our presence or escort us to our table.

One immediate issue I observed was the staff's unprofessionalism in storing their bags on the right side of the bar. This cluttered appearance did not create a pleasant atmosphere for customers and should be addressed for the sake of aesthetics.

Thankfully, there was a shining exception to this disappointing service. A young lady named Diane (or Dian) stood out as the only friendly and attentive member of the staff. Her professionalism and warmth were a stark contrast to the overall atmosphere in the restaurant.

Moving on to the food, I found the dishes to be rather average. In particular, the chips with queso left much to be desired. The queso dip was served seemingly straight from the fridge, resulting in a cold and chunky texture that made it difficult to enjoy with the chips. In fact, the chips were so hard that they broke when attempting to scoop the queso.

In conclusion, I must express my disappointment with the overall experience at Amigos. The lack of customer service from most of the staff was surprising and far below the standard I would expect, especially when considering the minimal crowd. While Diane's service was commendable, it was not enough to compensate for the shortcomings in both service and food quality. As a former restaurant owner myself, I would hesitate to hire any of the other staff members I encountered at Amigos, and I hope they can work on improving their customer service and food presentation...

For a place that focuses on dietary requirmemts they need to take much more care. We confirmed three times when ordering that items on our order were going to be vegan and gluten free. After consuming our meal and noticing the cheese and sauce tasting like dairy products we asked the waiter to check with the kitchen and found out it wasnt vegan. We apprreciated the honesty and understand honest mistakes but what was most disappointing was the host blaming us "make sure you say vegan when you order and double check" (we triple checked), and that even though the meal we ate was not vegan "did we like it?". They took no responsibility for serving dairy to someone who is lactose intolerant and tried to blame us for ordering wrong (we did everything short of taking the phone out of the waiters hand to input the order ourselves). I insisted we weren't paying for the meal that contained dairy and eventually the host obliged but overall was a poor experience for a place you expect to be getting dietary requirements right. Ambience of the restaurant was great, food is pretty pricey but that seems to be standard in wanaka, servings were large and the fried potato's were delicious, flavours of the mains weren't overly special. On the whole wouldn't go back because of the way they handled their stuff up and lack of confidence in being able to get the dietary...