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New Zealand 

Mr.Stevens
4th March 2011 5 star 

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The breakfast experience at The Wellesley Club was so good that perhaps our search for the Wellington CBD’s best breakfast could be called off, and we could just go to the Wellesley Club every Friday, however the enjoyment of the process of searching and trying new places will probably result in the Wellesley being selected once a month to remind us of the standard others must aspire to.

The service really is exceptionally good. It is attentive, caring, pleasant, humorous and genuine. This perfectly augments the very comfortable environs, complete with the CBD’s best flower boxes and easily the best mounted Buffalo head. The classical violin music is a very welcome departure from the normal cafe background music. It is soothing and uplifting, and perfectly accompanies the stellar service and setting.

At the Wellesley it’s all about the details. The tea, for example, was excellent. Other cafes seem quite readily prepared to spend thousands of dollars on the provision of quality coffee but think that tea can either be sold in tea bags, or limited to English Breakfast, Earl Grey and a range of herbal teas. Not at the Wellesley… the Darjeeling was excellent, with a nice proportion of flowery leafy tips in the leaves too. The tea arrived in a white china pot, not a stainless tea pot, which added to the quality experience. The strainer was already in my cup, with a strainer drip tray provided to the side, and the milk in a matching white china milk jug. The sugar bowl had lumps of sugar, which was of no interest to me as I do not put sugar in my tea, but was deeply pleasing for my breakfast companion for his coffee. On our last breakfast at the Wellesley Club the coffee had been average – but this time the coffee was very good, with a second cup ordered to complete breakfast.

I had what must be close to the perfect porridge experience. Smooth porridge with almonds, bananas, fresh cream and brown sugar (a must with porridge) which came in its own small bowl, allowing me to tune the amount of brown sugar to my tastes, and reapply more after the top most layer of porridge had been eaten. Splendid. And at just $6.50 it would have to be a podium finisher for best value breakfast too.

Our second diner had 2 free range eggs, poached, on toast with sides of fried potatoes, and bacon. Again the value proposition was outstanding, with the two free range eggs on toast being just $6.50, and the sides $4.00 – $5.00 each. In line with the excellent standard of the place our table had it’s own pepper grinder and salt shaker, and the fried potatoes were indeed fried potatoes and not potato bites out of a frozen packet.

A close to flawless breakfast experience that really is the standard by which all other CBD Breakfasts are to be judged. And at $36.00 for the two of us including tea and coffee, who can complain about the value for money?

Emily
16th May 2012 5 star 

My husband and I went for dinner at Maginnity’s on Monday evening due to the fact that our usual place was booked and we had heard good things from friends. Upon arrival I was surprised to find the inside of the Wellesley hotel to hold a lot of charm and not reflect any off putting ‘boys club’ type character. The restaurant Maginnity’s was the same. The ambiance was lovely, however I think it would have been even better with the open fire going that I spotted in the bar area. Perhaps the night was not quite cold enough. I found the menu to be fantastic with many desirable things to choose from and we were informed it was a new menu as of last week. My husband chose the lamb and I chose the beef with fries to share. While we were waiting for our food our friendly young waitress helped us match a pinot noir to our meals, which we were pleased with. After a reasonable amount of time our meals arrived and we both agreed they were delicious, particularly my husband’s succulent lamb from Pirinoa Station. Due to the attentive service and with many more things we would like to try on the menu, we will back. A lovely evening.

Matti S.
28th February 2012 1 star 

Sometimes it is just one disappointment after another; for us it was a dinner in Maginnity’s. We decided to try it as Mr Burton gave it a great review, and most of the time Burton’s reviews have been spot on, not today though.

We were a bit early so decided to have pre-dinner drinks; my wife wanted something Campari based, I wanted to try a wine I had not tried before. The waiter offered to create something for her (nice touch we thought) and I tried a glass of Paddy Borthwick’s Sauvignon Blanc. She was served a Campari Soda (how was that “created”?) and I got a wine that smelled and tasted corked. So I complained of course, asking for the sommelier. The waiter claimed to be the sommelier and continued saying there cannot be nothing wrong with the wine as he had just opened a new bottle? He obviously never heard something could be wrong with a newly opened bottle. He went on saying remembering it tasting funny when he first tried it, but he got used to it? And that was that, you drink what you get.

We got ourselves a different bottle altogether for the dinner and the waiter actually let us taste it first. My wife recognised the taste and asked if the wine was from Hawkes Bay, our “sommelier” did not know? BTW, all the used glasses stayed with us through the whole dinner (including the cocktail glasses). I ordered some baguette with olive oil to start with, followed with whitebait fritter for myself and scallops for my wife. Rather than bringing the baguette first, it was brought at the same time with my wife’s entree (and her entree was served to me), my entree was brought a little while later on asking.

The entrees were actually very nice, but the baguette included only 2 small slices. Our mains were snapper for her and lamb for me – snapper was mainly good, but one part must have been older as it was very fishy. The lamb was divine, but portion was too small (we had asked the waiter what size the dinner was, whether ordering sides was worthwhile excercise and were told meals were large enough). This was the first time for a long time that I was hungry after entree and main (and even having bread to “start” with).

We decided to follow up with some cheeses, and selected 3 different ones. Actually these were all really good, the whole cheese board was really nice. We had the cheese board with a glass of nice Australian Cabernet Sauvignon blend, which our “sommelier” actually introduced as Merlot.

So overall food was mostly good, some average bits, some excellent bits. Our service was shocking, the waiter had absolutely no idea on most of the meals and why oh why did he claim to be the sommelier when he obviously had no idea on wines. And did I mention it was not a busy night, 4 customers was the busiest, so no excuse for the service.

Susan W.
3rd February 2012 5 star 

I went to Maginnity’s for lunch last week with some girls from the office.

What a great experience, not “boys clubby” at all. Had a nice private table booked, service and food was excellent. Thoroughly enjoyed my stuffed mushrooms and dessert was “yum” – summer berry pudding.

All in all a great lunch – I’ll definitely be back!

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