Trocadero Restaurant & Bar — Restaurant in Waitematā

A comedy of errors.

8.30 pm, Friday night, Queen Street Auckland, two women looking for a quiet drink between our dinner and our show. The bar and restaurant is open until 10 pm, so says the door. We enter, are greeted and guestured towards the bar. A drinks list was presented. We chose. No. We can't make that cocktail listed. No we don't have that wine available... or the other one there either. "Sorry", says the bar tender, "it's my first day". She deferred everything to another, who made her, and us, wait uncomfortably, through each retelling and painful direction. A bottle was presented and I regrettably agreed to a glass. My companion chose an espresso martini, described as creamy with ingredients listed. We watched the 4 visible staff play Faulty Towers. While the new bar tend began fiddling the espresso machine to produce the 'cold brew' another argued with the only restaurant patrons over some kind of voucher they were paying with. A man wandered out of the back office, complete with rumpled suit, half untucked shirt, mullet hairdo and scratching his belly - he'd surely just awakened? Meanwhile, a 5 litre catering pack of syrup is produced, a slug is slopped into a shaker of ice with a single measure of vodka, it's shaken and tipped into a glass then we watch as the top of the coffee machine is cracked open and a bare hand picks a few beans to float on the drink I was charged $23 for. But it doesn't end there. Five staff began packing up the bar. I asked "Are you closing"? "Yes, close at 9.15". It wasn't quite 9. Aside from us, there were a couple on their first night of a 3 week tour in New Zealand. What an introduction to the renowned...

While this is a great location, great atmosphere what this place lacks strong service skills. While dinning here before a concert we sat down and waited 20mins for our first round of drinks to arrive, when they arrived we ordered out meals… 45mins later and watching those that have sat down before us be served and leave we enquired not once, not twice, not even three times but 4 seperate occasions to where our meals were and what was going on. Not once did they come back and take ownership and let us know there was a muck up (which we clearly knew at this point) No apologies were offered when our meal was finally out in front of us 90mins after being seated. When we raised concerns while paying the bill, the waiter walked away while we were still talking to get the eftpos machine… clearly showing lack of customer service or etiquette while dealing with a situation that could have easily been resolved with communication. The only reason this is not a one star review is the mushroom risotto was the...

Night was ruined! Had a 6pm reservation for 2. Table wasn't actually reserved, they rejigged a 3pax table. Was told the kitchen was swamped with a 40min wait for food (even though there was only 4 other tables occupied). No food was seen on any tables and this was at 6pm

Sat down, dinner menu options lacking , only a handful of dishes. 13mins in, multiple patrons walked out, probably 3-4 groups, I asked the last woman to depart "are you leaving already?" She said "yes, because there wasn't any food coming out and they have a show at the Town Hall to see."

We had a show to watch too, not a single wait staff took our order for that 14mins we were seated, so we left too. About 20mins later, the two fire trucks showed up and cleared the rest of the restaurant.

Unfortunately -There's no reason for us to try that...