Really yummy food and quick service. The playground is amazing for kids and the garden rocks! My only concern is very time I have been ( about 6x over the last year) the car park ALWAYS smells of raw sewage. That really needs to be sorted!!!

★★ for visit one.
★★★★ for visit two (see update at bottom)

Riverstone Kitchen is The Best Restaurant In New Zealand, as voted by a magazine with a bigger circulation than Cat Lovers Weekly. Riverstone Kitchen’s food is not The Best Food in New Zealand. There’s nothing wrong with their food, per se- it is well cooked, well presented- it is as professional as The Rolling Stones cracking out another album. There’s just nothing particularly good about it, either. Their food doesn’t create a new language, or surprise or delight or challenge. It doesn’t even attempt to do any of this- the equivalent of writing another “Boys Don’t Like Me Because I Wear Glasses And Sit On The Bleachers”, or making another forgettable movie as Oscar fodder about a concerned white lady who’s concerned with inner city school children and inspires them to do something inspirational and changes their lives For The Better and everyone goes away saying “gee, that lady was so concerned and nice.”

Their food is that movie and a million other similar movies. I had the potato gnocchi, which was the concerned white lady to a t- it was cooked well, but not particularly brilliant. There was not much of it. I was still hungry afterwards (the waitress, a lady who became more bubbly with every word she spoke, didn’t bother mentioning lunch is entrée-sized and that I could possibly have an entrée to go with my entrée-sized lunch).

M and S had a platter to share. The platter consisted mostly of dips and bread- the last time they shared a platter at Riverstone, it consisted of, well, a platter of things, as opposed to a dish more aptly named “Bread and Dip”. As opposed to my gnocchi, it wasn’t particularly good food. It was bar food.

I left Riverstone feeling unsatisfied and still hungry. Their reputation is undeserved, and perhaps they’re the victim of The Best Restaurant In New Zealand title. The food is good but ultimately forgettable.

–

Second visit to Riverstone warrants a mention here: wonderful food and not as so many people to put it in the running for the-Disneyland-of-food (get your Mickey Mouse cap here). The key is to visit for dinner rather than lunch. ★★★★ out of ★★★★★ for this visit, yet my first review still stands for that particular visit, too.

great location, well laid out restaurant and staff very helpful. Lovely to be able to see into kitchen Food freshly baked and prepared and even though they were preparing for a wedding later that day made us very welcome. The scones to die for the grounds and shop make for an additional experience and well worth driving there en route from Dunedin back to Christchurch area. Will def visit again my husband says can you make the coffee size bigger it was so good!!

on my 3 visits to date, the service can be patchy. Please make certain there is someone on meet and greet duty, queing at the till to be told you can just take a seat is not satisfactory (visit 2). Being seated and then being moved is also not acceptable.(visit 1)The food was good , although last time there were 3 mussels not cooked sufficiently to open. This should have been obvious to the chef prior to the meal being plated. Not the waitresses job to check that surely?? Good wine list and reasonable prices. A good stop over point on trips and would recommend this as a destination on womens weekends due to the large shopping area.

Every experience we have at Riverstone Kitchen has been a good one, with and without small Children.
The day time menu is short but what is offered is top class as is the service.
The creative vegetable gardens along side the Restraint are a testament to the to the freshness of the food and a sight for sore eyes.
The inside and outside Children’s play areas are fantastic.
We encourage all our Home-stay guests to eat at Riverstone Kitchen and their feed back is always positive. http://www.retreatoamaru.com

My husband and I stopped off at Riverstone a couple of weeks ago, mainly to have a look at the phenomenal gift shop my parents had told us about. We popped our heads into the restaurant just for a look. We were asked if we wanted a table for two and thought “What the heck.. why not?” The place looked as though the food would be really expensive. However, we were pleasantly surprised when our scrambled eggs were served. The cost was well worth the amount and the taste was amazing. We can honestly say that they were the best we had ever tasted! The truffle oil made them really special. We are definitely going to go back.

Great environment, excellent, fresh and nuanced food and family-friendly. Perfect.

Sunday lunch sees many families dine at Riverstone, which makes for more kids, noise and business than mid-week. It’s distance from Oamaru can also make it difficult to maintain consistent staff levels. However, neither are allowed to detract from the service, especially not the quality of the food.
Prices, especially for the main dishes, are very reasonable. This includes the day specials – something I find exceptional for food of this quality.
I have tried the venison and gnocchi as well as the green-lipped mussels. Both were superb and vastly different.
The only things I would do differently would be to try a hint of kaffir lime in the mussels (as this was a very Thai-based dish) and add a couple of bolder reds to the wine list.