This restaurant has freshly smoked salmon (on the premises)
And fabulous steaks. You get a healthy sized meal and the service is extremely hospitable. I brought my friends from New
York last week and they would not stop raving about the
Food!

Tried Verve tonight and we were underwhelmed. It was a meal of two halves as my wife had scallops followed by smoke salmon which she enjoyed. I however, was totally disappointed. I had the Camembert entree – where was the camembert? Just tasted like deep fried filo pastry served with a ton of rocket. This was followed by an eye fillet which was apparently ‘seared’ with garlic butter. No, it was an eye fillet with a burnt top and bottom. This was also served with ‘Verve potatoes’ which is an undercooked baked potato which has then been flattened and then deep fried. Served with another ton of rocket. What about some veg?? Sorry, but it was crap. At no point were we asked if everything was ok with our meal, even after being presented with the bill! We expected better from somewhere that was charging the prices that they were and nobody seemed bothered that we were not happy. In hindsight, I should have paid them what I thought the meal was worth rather than what they asked for. Never again!

This restaurant is a little gem. The smoked salmon (smoked on premises) is the best I have eaten.
I travel frequently (both within NZ and overseas) and can recommend the service, the surroundings and the food.
Adrienne makes you feel right at home and it is great to see other diner’s enjoying their meals with such relish!
The peanut butter and ginger ice cream is stunning.

Took the sheep-farming girl cousin here last week – she’s as rough as guts but said she’s like a meal out – God knows why: I thought she just ate them straight out of the paddock. Anyway she had chicken something, which she thought was just great: she thinks chickens are just two-legged sheep which taste funny. The missus took the chicken pasta bowl with some kind of creamy winey (I think) sauce which was a huge portion: she’s really hard to please but she seemed to enjoy it anyway, at least until about midnight when some kind of intestinal movement set in and wrecked her night. Apparently – I slept OK. I’m not sure what she was suffering from but it can’t've been Verve Flu because nothing could’ve happened that quickly for a start; and I had more of her dinner than she’d had, for lunch, the following day, without any kind of side effects at all!

I ordered the rich-priced (medium rare) eye fillet: great sauce but the fillet iself was a jaw exerciser and should’ve been a lot more tender. It was a pricey dish and I should’ve made a fuss but the presence of the malodourous cousin kept me distracted. I can’t recall if the veggies were extra or not but it wouldn’t've mattered much because a few cents would surely have covered the cost of that portion? There’re only two types of potato on the menu as far as I saw – mash, and Verve spuds – whatever the hell they are. I don’t think I had mash. And I’m not sure if I had spuds, come to think of it.

But a nice place to get reasonable food at a bit more than I’d usually be comfortable paying, given the averages. But still better than its former ego as Jaffa, where half a can of Oak baked beans on toast cost me %15.50 – back when petrol was only 90c a litre.

the hot smoked (to order!) salmon and the liquid centre chocolate pudding, just delicious!