If a restaurant is going to be put towards of the top of the Sky Tower, it should at least be a reasonable restaurant. A simple idea I thought, but apparently not. We had talked about going to the above for friends’ father’s birthday but ended up going elsewhere (a good thing for all concerned). This time around myself and another decided to take in the views and what should well be a great buffet experience.
The evening started off well enough – $10 in a pokie yielded $100, apparently thanks to my lucky charm. Things went downhill from there though.A request for a Caprioska at the first bar resulted in blank looks and a shrug of the shoulders. I decided to ask at a couple of other bars in Sky City – same blank look, same unwillingness to ask us to wait while they went and found out what the hell we were on about. This is a bar that is touted as a tourist attraction to fair Auckland, as well.
I’ve said it before: customer service in NZ is poor. When the barman finally got around to making it, I counted at least 8 pours of vodka though, which helped ease the frustration somewhat…
We then went up to the Sky Bar, to find the same thing (ok – maybe by now we were just playing with them) from the American tending the bar there. Surely the meal experience will make up for this.
Nope.
We arrive, and the Maitre ‘D leads us to a table immediately in front of the cash register, while there’s a number of others further around empty. Argh. Surely the food will make up for this.
Nope.
The chef must have felt deficient in many areas in life, as the food by and large was overdressed, overcomplicated, and very much had the appearance of someone trying too hard. With food, often less is more, and the appearance and taste was a mishmash.
Overall verdict: Valentines at three times the price (with a slightly better view).
Comments
4 responses to “Where NOT to eat in Auckland part 1: The Observatory”
At least Valentines have jellybeans to biff at everyone else too!
We’ve never ever had a good eating experience at Sky Tower. Been to three different restaurants and none of them were better than average.
We went to here for a friends birthday party a couple of years ago and it was really really really bad. Seemed like the staff were all uni students who wished they were off somewhere else partying. They were pretty rude and took their time serving us and even didn’t want to wait for us when we wanted to go and take some photos first. Told us we’d lose our table if we did.
We took it up with the lady there who was in charge and she didn’t really care and finally said she’d talk to them but made us feel like we were complainers and just being picky. We asked to talk to the the manager and she said he was too busy and if we really wanted to make something of it to ring the next week or write a letter. Really ruined what was meant to be a special night.
Ate there once too and wasn’t impressed either. Pretty crappy actually