Gemmayze Street — Restaurant in Waitematā

Worst customer service experienced in Auckland. I made a terrible mistake of visiting this restaurant on 22nd November Friday evening with my girl friend.

The restaurant reception person was so busy that pointed us to to the side and "told" us to sit on side and did not tell us any information about how long will it take for the table to be available. We requested several times to please tell us how long will it take. He kept saying "I dont know just sit and I will give you something"

After a terrible wait for 45 minutes he gave us the worst seats right next to the toilets which was busy with people going in and out. The young gentleman pointed us from far and told us to go and sit there.

We requested the gentleman that we waited for more than 40 minutes and now you have given such terrible location out of everywhere he just said this is the best I can do and left.

Then we asked for a manager he mentioned he is the manager and he cannot do anything at this busy time and it is because we dont have any bookings.

We did tell him that we tried booking online but could not he just did not want to listen and kept rambling about what he had to say.

Right after that he took another couple to their seats and moved the chairs for them in a location which we had asked for. The same couple had arrived after us and did not have a booking also.

It is so sad to see that Lebanese restaurant had a poor Lebanese service also.

I will never visit this place again and will not recommend anyone to visit this place.

We ended up going to another restaurant with a great service and excellent food.

Save yourself some time and there are plenty of good options apart from such restaurants with arrogant staff with poor customer manager skills.

DONT VISIT...

I have been to Gemmayze Street many many times over the years and it has always been a firm favourite. Alas, my experience last night was not great. I took 8 friends for the $90 /jeeb set menu for my birthday dinner and it was not great, it fact, it wasn't even good. I was kind of embarrassed.

Firstly, I wasnt given a menu or detailed what any of the dishes would be. I told the waitress that I did not eat red meat at all and my friend was a vegetarian. The first course came and we were not told what the dishes were at all. One of the dishes was venison but was not obviously visually meat so we were unsure if we could eat it.

The second course was fish and it was fish covered in some kind of butter chicken tasting sauce with cashews atop and some kind of crustacean - my friend was given some carrot as an alternative to the fish. This course came out on its own and was strange and not pleasant.

The next course was two big plates of red meat, one put right in front of me, with cucumber salad, carrots, fattoush and some eggplant salad. My friend was given a small piece of halloumi coated in some kind of sweet stuff as he is vegetarian (which was unpleasant) and I was given nothing even though I don't eat red meat. So I just ate salad for my main?

The dessert chocolate cake had a strong almond marzipan taste and wasnt very nice, the knefe was nice.

All and all, I was really disappointed with the meal and the service. I have had lovely meals here over the years and maybe it was just an off night but I wasnt stoked with the meal and probably will...

What an amazing and vibrant place! Nice tables and cutlery, friendly staff, and very comfortable chairs. Love that the music was not too loud and our group could engage in conversation - a proper catch-up! We decided to have the "Jeeb" menu and I must say I did consider un-buttoning my trousers at the end of the meal. We were served 6 courses, but each course had a few elements. We started with some snacks comprising of potato balls, chickpea something, and rolled fish (I really apologize for the description but there is no way I can remember everything now). Then the starters were a mix of hummus (of note, I had heard this was the best hummus on Earth, but that is not something I agree with), labneh, bread, fried cauliflower (this was just outstanding) and 2 other dips. The entrée was a beautiful piece of pan-fried fish on a bed of spinach and potato foam - really delicious, maybe the best dish of the night. The mains were a mix of octopus (beautiful flavour, but slightly rubbery), steak (gorgeous temperature and scrumptious jus), roasted pumpkin with parmesan sauce (just yum!) and salad (think it was butter lettuce and hints of cardamom). The first dessert was flambeed (I think) pineapple with ice-cream, followed by a rich mini-chocolate cake with ice-cream + poached pear with coconut ice-cream and a crispy sweet hollow element on top. And now I wish I had written down what the staff said when they described the dishes... I highly recommend Gemmayze Street and will...