Patagonia Chocolates — Restaurant in South Island

Today my partner and I came over from Queenstown to run some errands and decided to stop in for your “famous” hot chocolate and a flat white. I’ve been coming to central Otago for the past 20 years and either of the Patagonia shops/cafes have always had great service and drinks. Unfortunately today was where the ball dropped. I walked into the venue today remarking that it smelt like a poorly cleaned public toilet which wasn’t a great start. Service at the counter was shocking and rude by a staff member of (assuming Asian) decent and was not friendly and did not seem like she wants to work in customer service. Received hot chocolate and coffee well after 15 mins whilst they seemed to prioritise in house customers over take away. I took one sip of my coffee and spat it back out, tasted like a watered down filter coffee that had been boiled in the depths of hell. Clearly the staff member that made the coffee either has little to no training on how to make proper coffee at a drinkable temperature or doesn’t put time and care into their job. Leading me onto my partners hot chocolate, this was far far far below the standard that I’ve had here before and was lumpy with what I can only assume was curdled milk and barely a taste of chocolate or cocoa. Seems like it was made last week and is constantly reused until empty. I am extremely disappointed about all aspects of my visit today and will never be returning or recommending Wanaka Patagonia in the future. Seems like the staff need a serious lesson or training on how to talk to and serve customers whilst also knowing how to actually perform in the position they’re in. If I could rate this any lower than one star I would be. I hope the owner/ operator actually addresses this issue as I’m sure I’m not...

As I have got older, my appetite for sweet treats has lessened and while I had browsed Patagonia chocolates previously, nothing had enticed me enough to make a purchase.

However that all changed when Wanaka was blessed with a fabulous sunny day which changed my mind and there I appeared in Patagonia, seeking out an cold treat to complement the wonderful weather.

I have to praise the very friendly staff, who were very patient with my indecisiveness, giving me their personal recommendations in addition to letting me sample as many ice creams and sorbets as I desired.

With much deliberation I finally decided upon one scoop of the chocolate sorbet in one of their homemade waffle cones.

The deeply rich, tangy, ever so slight bitter flavours make this a favourite for the dark chocolate fans such as myself, the taste is comparable to a 85% piece of dark chocolate.

In my opinion this sorbet is totally superior to all chocolate ice cream. By cutting out the middle man of cream, sugar, the sweetness as this does, it results in a much deeper, purer chocolate flavour than any chocolate ice cream could ever hope for.

The tangy flavours are partly due to some fruity notes I detected, tart raspberries came to my mind in particular.

The homemade waffle cone brings a low level taste of sweetness that is just the right touch and the crisp crunch of the cone was perfect.

While I wouldn't change a thing about it, it is very rich so consuming in small quantities or with sweet fresh fruit such as raspberries would mellow the richness slightly.

Overall I would highly recommend coming here, the best establishment in wanaka to grab and enjoy some ice cream or sorbet by the beach...

The service and the product quality standards at Wanaka Patagonia are very low as compared to the one at Queenstown. We ordered the vanilla sticks with the dark chocolate coating and we were served the milk chocolate wrongly mentioning that it was dark chocolate. The ice cream stick wasn't dipped in chocolate at all instead the chocolate was just splattered over it sticking to the bamboo boat bowl. It was a very disappointing experience and we had to bin it as we cudnt eat it. We questioned the staff about the coating and were surprised to hear her say "this is the only way we do it here!". The staff treated us differently probably beacuse of our color which is really sad as we were paying customers just as everyone else and we were also constantly reminded of the extra costs for the toppings which wasn't necessary as we could read it on the board and we were always Patagonia patrons but this experience was the most disappointing. Please work on your customer service. I felt the hospitality and the happiness of being at...