The Archive Bar & Bistro — Restaurant in Waiheke

First of, the location is just stunning. Beautiful vineyard view particularly with the sunset along the horizon. Second, the waiter was very nice and courteous. He helped us with our orders and got us to eat in one of the best spots. Third, the food is just heavenly. The king salmon and some oysters to start with then topping it off with the steak and fish order. We were thoroughly impressed. Even the kid’s fish and chips was tasty. Lasty the drinks. The Waiheke tap beer was smooth and the chardonay was just perfect with the fish.

However, our experience was ruined when a fly decid ed to fly onto my Chardonay. This really put me off considering how fancy the restaurant was to have a fly not only be around but for it to have gone into my drink. The waiter was nice enough to get my drink but for some reason offered to just remove the fly from my drink. I politely said that I didn’t want to drink it anymore and he took the glass away. The other thing that rubbed me the wrong way was when I was paying for our food, I didn’t feel that the lady who was taking our payment was genuine in her apologies about our experience. I think it’s not enough to just take it off our bill. Our whole experience was ruined because of these events!

I hope that this is something that you could look into about improving your service. Good food and a good view would be further emphasised by warm and...

Table of 3 on holiday from Australia, we had the duck meatballs with five spice, it was basically a dumpling filling, nice flavour but mushy and paste like and no texture, tired looked salad garnish, and the rolled up pancakes are impractical to eat, my daughter thought it looked like meatballs worshping a pancake christmas tree, oysters were ok but a bit pricey, paneer tempura, sauce was so overpowering that we were trying our best not to get any on the paneer, confit duck was nice, very well cooked with a rich smokey bean dish, the poached snapper with red curry sauce had no balance, a delicate fish smothered in yet again another extremely overpowering curry sauce, the chef needs to wind back on the spice and not reduce the sauce so much and add a bit of fish stock, lime, maybe some crushed peanuts for texture, fillet steak was average, my son said it was nothing special, desserts were really nice Tiramisu was generous and light, Chocolate mousse was rich and delicious. The wine was fantastic, best ive had on my whole trip around the North Island, also the service was top notch very attentive and professional. For the price they charge i expected a lot more finesse and quality when it came to the cooking of the food, unfortunately it wasn't there on this particular night. Not worth the money we...

Maybe we picked an off night (it was certainly raining pretty hard) but overall was not that impressed. The normal restaurant was booked for a wedding - so the only option was the Archive. The food we had (lamb and steak) was pretty average tasting for the price. The steak was pretty tough and did not stay 'seated'. The decor and seating was pretty poor and was not really comfortable. The canvas tent was leaking rain in a few places and the place is looking overall pretty tired and grimy (eg the light in the toilet is coming away from the ceiling - if you are tall you may hit it with your head). Finally, the overall ambience / experience - it just seemed rushed, loud, cold and damp with weather pushing into the room. What we thought was going to be the top highlight of our dining experience turned out to be the worst meal on Waiheke. It certainly did not meet some of the other reviews here. Maybe our expectations were too high - and maybe the full restaurant would have been better - and maybe we got an off night overall taking into account the weather - but I think there are areas that could be improved. Probably better during a warm day - not on a...