Dark Sky Diner — Restaurant in South Island

Tonight we had a table booked at 7pm for three people.

We sat down to a table set for two, asked for the third setting and received menus and ordered.

My friend ordered the muscles, my partner ordered the salmon both were impressed with the size of the dish, I ordered a GF venison burger.

As we began eating our meals the muscles seems nice and the salmon also however as my friend got half way through her dish she started to wash each muscle because they were far too salty, she was straving from the long drive from Queenstown so continued to wash them and eat them.

My partner felt ill after finishing his meal.

I however couldn’t even eat mine, I love venison and eat it very very often as it’s such a lovely lean meat, this evening I felt sick with one bite, it was sooo fatty and soo chewing as though it was mixed with pork mince, to try and stomach this I asked the staff for some lettuce to which the lady manager didn’t understand and a young male staff member translated in Spanish, she then told me she wasn’t sure and would check so I happy waited for her to come and let me know.

20 minutes passed and they did not come back, so I asked the young male waiter for the menu again, I saw I could eat the vege dish and was going to order this but no one came back to take my order.. it’s now 7:50pm so I ran to the four square to get some veges I could cook at home.

Not one staff member came to check on us while we were at the restaurant, not to ask if we wanted a drink or if the food was good or if we wanted desert, there was no service.

We went up to pay which is where I finally could tell the staff I was unable to eat my burger, I was rudely laughed at and asked why?! I responded respectfully saying it was very fatty I could not stomach it.

The staff member got the manager over who I had to reexplain the issue to, she argued with me telling me the burger did not say it had lettuce, I again responded respectfully and said thats ok I understand that but I had asked you if I may please get some lettuce and you said you would check and you never came back, I went on to explain as above about asking for the menus and was going to order something else but no one came back over to take my order.

She then tells me well she’s just staff and can’t do anything, I at this stage was very frustrated and said I am not paying for a meal that was inedible, she told me she would take 50% off I then very firmly said no, I am not paying for that burger which she then accepted.

My partner paid for his salmon and my roast potatoes I ate.

My friend then paid for her muscles because she ate them but said I just want to give you feedback that the muscles were far too salty, clearly not washed as they hard the muscle beard and three crabs in them… and the manager rolled her eyes and scoffed at this feedback.

Now we are home, my friend that ate the muscles has been throwing up in the bathroom for an hour and my partners stomach hurts so badly he can barely move.

This was not only terrible food and we worry they have food poisoning but the worst service I have ever seen!

And I would like a response to understand what you plan on...

We came by for dinner when we were in Tekapo on a Monday evening. They were quite busy and we did have to book to secure a table. The restaurant is located inside the Dark Sky Project building. Once inside, the diner is located by the windows on the far end. There is a waiting area where you wait to be seated. The menu has quite a few interesting items and they seemed to have a South American flavour to them. Interestingly, the three-course menu is only available when you pre-book as a group. We ended up just making our own three-course meal. I had the lakefront cocktail and that was quite nice with the coconut and pineapple. We started with the empanadas. There were 2 empanadas of the three different flavours they had. I quite liked the sweet corn and cheese one but they were all quite nice. I had the tomahawk steak as a main and it was decently sized and cooked really well. The steak came on its own platter with a really tasty salsa and chimichurri. It came with mash and a salad on the side. I also got to try the BBQ ribs and they had a nice flavour and they were quite tender. I got the panqueque as a dessert and I really liked it. Tasty dulce de leche rolled inside a pancake that was bruleed. It was a nice place to grab a tasty dinner. Service was quite good considering they were really busy and there wasn't very much staff. The area did die down around 2000. The food was tasty and it was something a...

One of the worst dining experiences I've had in some time. This restaurant has a premium location and should be exemplary. The staff were casually dressed. That's ok for the daytime coffee and counter food experience, but when I'm paying more that $50 for a main, I expect the staff to be better presented than wearing sneakers. The waiter used a tablet to record our order. It took so long and so many keystrokes to record each item. He would have been faster with pen and paper. The medium rare steak arrived well done with fat not removed. I wondered why everyone was given a steak knife with their main, considering only one of our party ordered steak. It soon became obvious. I needed it to cut the asparagus that came with my salmon. My wife tried to use her steak knife to cut the bread roll that came with her seafood chowder to no avail. The bread roll could not be cut or torn into pieces. If we'd walked out of the restaurant with it we risked being charged with carrying an offensive weapon. We skipped dessert and bought a tub of ice cream at the supermarket across the carpark. I love dessert. I check the dessert menu before I decide on my main. This is only the third time I have ever left a restaurant without ordering dessert. In my book, that's a damning indictment on the restaurant. I love Lake Tekapo, and we will visit again, but we won't be back to...