The day started with a planned hike in the Riverhead Forest, only to discover a total clearcut…read more Plan B worked out quite nicely at the West Brook Winery. On a quiet midweek day we were welcomed on arrival and options discussed. We ordered 2 flights of wine, 3 whites and 3 reds, a very nice cheese board and cracker assortment, and sat on the patio enjoying the pastoral view of vineyards, a lake complete with a few ducks, and farmland in the distance. .

Beautiful setting and grounds. I've visited close to 100 wineries all over the world and this was…read moreone of the prettiest. The wines were nice as well. I'm not a fan of reisling but I would happily drink theirs. There was a nice Chardonnay and a few others we enjoyed. Definitely worth the trip!

Wheels crunching up the gravel, the Tasting Shed looked sophisticated in black. Dining tables that…read morespilled out into the outdoor area are wrapped by the wind + rain proof outdoor gazebo. Everything about it oozed warm comfort and rustic charm. You wouldn't hear the quiet clinking of cutlery on plates and humble conversation here. It was a strict "no-tablecloths" restaurant. And these beautiful wooden tables probably take 5 times more work to maintain. My after-work brain probably took more time than necessary to figure out what the bobbles meant on the Savory to Sweet scale on the menu. With 25 items on the menu (including dessert), it was difficult to nail down what to order. We were advised to order 4 to 5 dishes because they were all entree sizes. Watermelon - smoked olive, goats cheese, baby ganoush This was one surprising combination. I've always been one to systematically eat my way through my plate because I didn't like mixing things together. Give me a fruit and cheese platter, I'd eat each individually. But this is something you'd want to pile a bit of each onto your fork. The watermelon and goats cheese blend beautifully into a creamy smoothie in your mouth. Rich and cooling at the same time - it's a weird sensation. Venison - carpaccio, mushrooms, beets, juniper, walnuts This is a great well-thought out dish with plenty to leave you taste testing, tilting your head and thinking. It was called the Venison dish, and with so much going on, the venison was the solid foundation to bring out the flavours of each ingredient. The sweet tang and slick texture of the mushrooms was paired with the crunch of the walnut and hokey-pokey chunks. We had fun melting the walnut powder on our tongues and poking at the different elements on the dish. The hokey pokey was not your average golden syrup variety but was made with beetroot juice - so even with this explosion of textures, everything blends together. After a mini degustation, one shared sweet dessert was enough! The rosewater was not an understatement - the scent was clear, and sweet, followed by an even sweeter strawberry parfait. It had a subtle summer breeze to this dish and the strawberry parfait an excellent substitute for your average ice cream. The saffron leaves a distinct after taste and cures the dish from being too sweet. With the popularity of restaurants that let you put elbows on tables, tablecloths are stripped away to make way for our laid-back Kiwi culture. If you're looking for a sweet candle-lit dinner, there's other fine-dining restaurants in Auckland CBD. But I'm loving this fusion of casual and fine at The Tasting Shed. The service doesn't make you feel like you're a VIP but more like your host that invited you to their house for dinner. So if you're looking for an excuse out of the city, make this your first stop!

Great tasting summer brunch/lunch place. Beautifully decorated with soft lighting and wooden…read morefurniture. Option to eat indoors or outdoors. Kitchen closed at 1500 to 1700 for dinner prep although small plates are served during that time. European cuisine with heavy Asian influence, think daikon, kimchi, even asam laksa (the Asian snob in me couldn't bring myself to order this). We had the market ceviche (good but we prefer this with a bit more punch), kimchi Mac & cheese (odd pairing which I enjoyed) and the Lamb Shoulder (fantastic!)

Pleasant atmosphere. The bread was excellent…read more The service was quite slow. The food was very expensive but very tasty and good.

Loved the family-owned aspect of this place. We tasted some wine with Tyler and he was nice to talk…read moreto and informative. The Two Daughters Rosé was absolutely delicious and I don't typically love rosé. We ate at the bistro as well. The food was okay but it wasn't that great in my opinion. Overall, it was a nice time but we didn't stay longer than just a quick tasting and a lunch.

Fantastic little winery featuring feijoa liquor and many delicious liquors to choose from! The…read moreowner, Danny, is very knowledgeable and makes it worth visiting the winery even if you don't drink! He had us try a dozen different liquors and several wines while regaling us with the amusing history of the feijoa. My favorites were the limoncello and the ginger liquor. Highly recommend a stop here if you are visiting the Coromandel area.

Best tasting I've ever experienced! Danny let us try all the different fruit liquors from the farm…read moreand told us the history behind the region, all in a very funny and entertaining way. He even ran down the hill to grab us some feijoas to try. It's clear the proprietors care deeply about both their customers and their business. Plus the view was SPECTACULAR. We bought a bunch of bottles to take home and will definitely return next time we're in the area. HIGHLY recommend!

'The Cellar Door' is the place to go for a memorable wine-tasting experience!…read more Foxes Island offers a delicious selection of white and red wine including Pinot Noir (2008/09), Chardonnay (2009), Riesling (2009), Sauvignon Blanc (2011/12) and lastly, Lapine (2010) from the 'Icon' Series, equivalent to their hero wine. From walking in the 'Cellar Door' on Williamson Avenue, to greeting one of the team from Foxes Island, to tasting a drop of your choice, to taking in the ambience of artwork from Dick Frizzell is definitely a hedonistic experience, for any wine and/or art lover. They have monthly masterclasses to educate and showcase their wine, along with other speakers and artists intermittently. Open 6 days a week as well! Yelp out.

We're so lucky to have such a wonderful cellar door right on our doorstop! Foxes Island, of course…read moresells Foxes Island wine but they also have a lot more going on in their beautiful space. They sell the amazing Zalto glassware, which is beautiful and dishwasher friendly plus they host a ton of events be it exhibitions, meet the maker nights to new vintages of their wines. Owners, Kelly and John are lovely and well-respected in the wine industry. Highly recommend popping and picking up a bottle (or case) of their beautiful wine!

What a sweet find! Great service and wonderful wine!!! Stop by to enjoy the fine selection of wines…read moreand eating from full fare to sweet dessert assortments :) You will want to return a second time and third time...Please share your experiences and add to the Family Atmosphere!!! Cousy and super fantastic!!!

Quaint little yummy restaurant! The food was divine. The sous chef is a vegan so the vegetarian and…read moreGF options were top notch. The service was some of the best I have received while in NZ; very attentive without hovering. The entrance is just across from parking for the Karangahake Gorge bike path. I'm definitely keeping this spot in mind for a wedding location!

Definitely definitely definitely give this place a miss- there are so many cafes with fantastic…read morefood around town now, which are far superior to Mills Reef. This is really a convention centre masquerading as a restaurant- it lacks atmosphere and refinement. For a restaurant which considers itself 'fine dining' the staff, food and dining room lack finesse. We made a booking for a very special occasion for 11.30am. When we arrived we were told that if we ordered within 5 minutes we could order from the brunch menu as opposed to the lunch menu. This appealed to 3 out of 4 of our guests. When the maitre'd came back to us to take our order, he refused to let one guest order from the lunch menu, and the other three from the brunch menu. He said that the chefs don't allow one table to order from different menus. While incredibly frustrating, this wasn't the end of the world. We eventually all ordered- and three meals arrived all at once. We had to wait over 5 minutes for the last meal to arrive. All of the hot meals were served on cold plates! It made for a really unenjoyable experience. One of the hot meals arrived absolutely stone cold, and the bacon was severely undercooked- bordering on raw. We sent the cold meal back, and it arrived back at the table 10 minutes later having been obviously microwaved (everything, including the toast was nuked but soggy). In the mean time another member of our party had ordered a side of hollandaise sauce, because the hollandaise had been omitted from their eggs bene for some reason? It took over 10 minutes for the hollandaise to arrive at the table, and it had completely curdled and been cooked on top- it was like scrambled eggs and completely inedible. Overall the experience was horrendous. I can't recommend this place less. It's not even about the price point- but you can get a far superior meal from an upmarket cafe for a much cheaper price in town. Don't buy in to the hype- Mills Reef is incredibly dated, and the food is absolutely abysmal. To apologise for the horrible experience, we were given a $4 discount on our bill, which is borderline insulting. We didn't want or expect a discount, and were happy to pay and just never return. But after the appalling meal and service, to only offer a $4 discount? Don't even bother offering a discount at all. Unbelievable. Never again.

Good food. Our table ordered a varied selection of Mains and desserts. I ordered an eye fillet…read morewhich was cooked perfectly although I would have expected more veges on the plate. For dessert I ordered a chocolate mousse which was delish. My wife have a cheese board which was expectationaly generous. The decor is a bit inconsistent. Where we sat it felt Like sitting in a factory. Would visit again when in the area.

Wow, went last weekend on a magic day Went to the casual…read morerestaurant and had half the menu it was so good Service was great really good vibe Bread starter is a must Loved it

One of the most beautiful sunsets I've ever experienced was eating dinner at Mudbrick. The view is…read moredivine, and the garden feels so quaint and picturesque that I was completely wowed. It's nice coming here for the ambience alone! They have two or three course dining options and I went with the two course plus a bread order which ended up being the perfect amount of food. The dishes were surprisingly innovative for being a winery restaurant, and I really appreciated the pairings they suggested with each dish. I especially liked their Sauvignon Blanc and Merlot options. It's definitely pricey, but I am glad I got to try dinner here. Only catch is that it's quite difficult to get a car back home - we had dinner at 7:30 pm and it was a bit harrowing getting a taxi. The hotel will help call for you but our driver double booked himself for extra business so we stood outside almost half an hour in the dark. Regardless, the restaurant itself was great and worth the trip.