Darling on Drake — Restaurant in Waitematā

Date night is rare, so when we get an opportunity we love to go out! We were greeted warmly when we arrived and were seated by the window which was closest to the outdoor bar area. The lighting was dimmed for the evening but the music was loud (which we didn’t mind, we were just happy to be out for date night!) worth noting given our reservation was at 8pm on a Saturday night We had the Housemade Focaccia, Short rib nuggets and Hennesey Fried Chicken to start. Would highly recommend the nuggets, lots of filling, they were so good. These dishes only come with 3 pieces so it was lovely to be asked if we would like to have 4. The focaccia bread was thick and delicious (we love bread so we got 4 pieces) We then had the Baked Snapper with warm tartare sauce, BBQ Lumina Lamb Rump and fries with Aioli sauce. The portions were great but would recommend getting plates to share. To end our night we had the Sticky toffee Ginger pudding with Vanilla ice cream, that was so good! They allocate 2 hours seating for dinner which allowed us to just relax and enjoy our evening. After our meal we thought we’d go and check out the outdoor balcony area where they had the DJ playing, it was pretty busy and the vibes were great. All in all, we had a lovely evening, service was attentive and the food was delicious. Total for the 2 of us with food, drinks and tip was $230. We left with full bellys and a wonderful experience. We will...

Service 1/10 but they redeemed themselves when the 10/10 food eventually came out after waiting for about an hour. Went here on Thursday night for 8pm dinner reservation for 3 pax, the restaurant was full and had a great vibe. We were seated and then forgotten about, 20 min later I got up and asked to be served. We were ready to order our 1st drink and food by the time the 1st waiter came to us. One entre came out 10min later and then we were left waiting for 40min without a single waiter coming over to even check on our drinks. By 9pm the restaurant was 90% empty and all the staff were busy cleaning the empty tables. When I finally got up to check on what is going on, the food came out a few minutes later with a complimentary mini martini for all of us which was a nice gesture. Every single dish was faultless, but the smoked cabbage absolutely blew all of us away – a must try. After dinner we went outside on rooftop deck and had another drink, there was a DJ playing and had a great atmosphere. Great place for pre drinks if you don’t want to do the whole dinner thing. I hope the service was just a one off and our table just fell through the cracks. Will deff be back to try more things...

Lovely dinner out at Darling on Drake. Host was warm and welcoming and was the same when we paid - and actually cared what my favourite dish was (the cheese and truffle pudding hands down). We had the focaccia bread and when we ordered it it was recommended to have the mushroom parfait with it which we ordered but it didn't really wow us. The bread with the oil that it comes with would have been enough. Then the cheese and truffle pudding with marmite was so good - was tempted to order another one - and then the steak of the day was sirloin which was perfectly cooked. We had the scallop potatoes and roasted beetroot which were both fantastic and my partner also had the pork belly which unfortunately didn't had crackling (more like pork scratchings). We had sticky toffee and ginger pudding and the smores for dessert and the sticky toffee pudding was the winner. Just what you need on a chilly evening. The slow gal cocktail was yum and fruity too. All in all was a great date night and the plates came out perfectly spaced (sometimes it's far too quick) so we had a bit of resting time too. Can't wait to come back and try the new menu which apparently comes...