Customhouse - North End New Zealand

When walking in the whole atmosphere just welcomes you fully. The staff are amazing. The service is just top notch. The food is on a whole nother level. Flavours just explode in your mouth. Presentation is amazing. One could eat with their eyes. Whether you go for lunch or dinner you will never be disappointed. Highly recommend this place.

Loved this restaurant. Our meals came out quickly they were amazing. The service was fantastic. I would definitely dine here again. The only thing I could possibly find to fault them on was our wobbly table :

You'd think for a place that calls themselves The Custom House they'd have much better customer service. Apparently not. There were even several tiers of basic service wrongdoing at this establishment. a our main waitress looked like this was the last place she wanted to be and thus radiated a rude attitude throughout the night. b I get it was a busy night, but meals took up to an hour to arrive with no apology. c in between the prolonged servings of food, plates were left uncleared leaving an aesthetically displeasing dining environment. d we had to ask 4 different staff for water before we actually received water. e one main did not arrive with the others so we (not so patiently waited to eat. f and more. On this celebratory occasion we opted for the $65pp dinner set menu; including an entree, main and dessert, the portions were decent. I chose the asparagus, feta and spinach soup to begin and it was a divine bowl of soup; I could taste each ingredient but it was delicately blended and balanced so no flavour overpowered the other but all merged to a warm liquid glory. However the accompanying sourdough bread was hard and almost stale, nearly breaking my dainty teeth on first bite. The king salmon was average; mainly dry leaving me desperate for water post-bite though I enjoyed the crispy skin. My companion ordered a medium rare steak which was cooked to medium and wasn't even provided a steak knife (seriously! . The verdict; overpriced for the return, wait staff should go to etiquette school but nice waterfront view. When we went to pay, I think they undercharged us; that's incompetence karma for yah.

We had a lovely family meal here last weekend. We were a bit nervous as my daughter had decided this was the place for her birthday meal and it didn't really look setup for kids. However, the staff bought out a box of toys and we sat at a corner table and tried to keep out of the other guests way as the place filled up. The food was all very nice. For starters we had squid, chicken and some breads. The squid was fantastic! For mains we have selections of blue cod (a bit disappointed with the tempura batter it was pretty thick! , ribs and another main that I cannot remember. Everything was good, the service was nice and I think we'd be back.

We were a group 12 for dinner on the eve of Rigby Test match. The restaurant was very busy. It was the first time we have there. Most of us had 2 course and others 3. We were very pleased with the food. It was tasty well presented, good choice and ample. Most of us were pretty full by the end of the main course but just could not resist the dessert. The service was a bit slow with the waitresses seemingly to need to take our drink order in 'batches '. But considering how busy it was, we cannot fault it. The food came out together for the group so no one was left 'waiting '. Definitely recommend this place and going back in August for a birthday meal with a group of 6.