As it was our nieces birthday, she had chosen the White Swan for dinner.
There were 4 adults and 3 children.
We had to get our own menu’s which ended up being the lunch ones and not dinner, we also had to alert the wait staff we wanted drinks and to order.

The meals came out in a good timely manner with the kids being served first.

All the meals were very disappointing and I will not be going back. I do not think they are value for money, I had 4 mouthfuls of pork belly served with a handful of wedges!!! and a composting salad, for $24.
All the meals were of a below average standard and could have been produced better in my home kitchen.

Come on guys, you are serving the public and charging a fair whack for below average food and in very small portions.

As there are many dining choices in this region think you need to shape up a bit more.

Went to the White Swan tonight for my wife’s birthday. A quiet night in the formal dining area when we arrived (probably due to being a Tuesday night)

The waiter was excellent getting us seated with menus, arranging drinks along with arranging paper and colouring pencils for the bored 7 year old. He was witty and friendly and made sure we were well attended to.

His service made the night even more enjoyable along with the great food along with fantastic local ‘Martinborough Vineyards’ 2009 Pinot Noir.

My wife had the lamb rack and I had the pork belly, while the 7 year old had the child’s fish and chips with salad.

Portions were just right with enough fresh vegetables cooked so they still had the crunch to them. The meat on the lamb melted in the mouth and the pork belly was exactly what I was after.

Dessert – with perfect portion sizing there was enough room for the desserts all around, ice cream sundae with berries (7yo), sticky date pudding (wife) and apple and berry crumble for myself.
The desserts are not too small, nor too large and like the rest of the meal the presentation is excellent.

Thoughly recommend the White Swan for a wonderful relaxed time with fine food and drink. Currently on Tuesdays they also have their stonegrill menu for only $20 and from what I saw of this coming out of the kitchen I think I would have also enjoyed that (on the list for next time) .

Hi All,

Wife and I decide to treat ourselves with a dinner and night away at the White Swan which we got as an online deal. This deal did not limit our dinner choices in any way and this fact coupled with the savings, made this experience easier to swallow than if you had paid full price for everything.

Room:
Good size, clean and tidy but missing the mod cons you would expect for this price range, no heat pump, no microwave, small sized TV in living room only (none in bedroom), with a bad reception.

Food:
We had a three course meal, both our entries were the worst we ever had in a NZ restaurant. Both were priced at $17 mark , both seemed to be shop brought and out of a packet. I would guess they would take an average person two minutes to prepare. I had the Salmon entree while my wife grilled goats cheese.

Dinner
I had the stone grilled selection of seafood, my good lady had the pork belly. She was happy with hers, saying it was tasty and good portion. Mine was very badly presented, and at a pub lunch level of food, rather than the fine dinning you would expect from the prices ($32) and setting, e.g. menu stated main came with hand cut chunky chips while they seemed to be frozen supermarket chips.

Desert,
Wife had “Deconstructed banoffe pie” which again was the worst desert we ever paid for. Little did we know the $15.50 deconstructed pie was a lot of banana with some generic toffee/choc and cream topping. Bland and very overpriced.

Over all, the accommodation and dinner was over priced and very under whelming. I would suggest only consider going there if you get an online deal, and then only maybe. Paying the full price for this experience would be a rip off in my opinion.

Update (6th of July)
I would like to correct something said in the below comment from the manager of the White Swan, it is incorrect to say we “insisted” in staying in the lower quality room on that date.More We were told the suite we wanted was already booked but this other room was available and we were asked if we wanted it. We were not informed this was a lower standard room that is usually charged at lower price. Had we been informed of this we would have waited until a suite that was part of the deal was available.

I tend not to insist on staying in a lower standard room than is advertised. I do however insist on the truth.

This was just the loveliest night away from home we have had for ages, and it was to celebrate a special birthday. The hotel is spotless and our room had everything we needed – and everything worked perfectly. The staff was excellent from the person who took the booking (and then happily dealt with a change of date when we had to request it), to the welcoming manager, and the waiters in the dining room. We enjoyed a delicious meal -each course was attractively presented and the flavours were crisp and clean. It is a lovely dining room and we were made to feel special.
We are already looking forward to a return visit and would have no hesitation whatsoever in recommending this delightful place.

Where do you begin in describing the perfect night away? Well, I blindfolded my wife (in Wellington) and took her on a secret Valentines Day mini-trip out of town. She had no clue where we were going. After an hour and a half of anticipation, I took the blindfold off for her to discover herself in the beautiful, clean (in the design aesthetic sense), light-filled White Room at the White Swan Hotel (www.thewhiteswan.co.nz/accommodation/the-white-suite). She loved it, a lot – and so did I. We settled in, booked our reservation for dinner downstairs at the Dining Room, then went for a lovely evening stroll in the warming Greytown country evening air.

At 6:30pm we begun the perfect dinner. The waitress was ever so helpful – able to answer our queries about the dishes on the menu, quick to ask the chef if small changes could be made to suit our dietary requirements, but never overbearing with her pervasive presence…as can be the case in some establishments. The menu was incredibly varied (www.thewhiteswan.co.nz/the-dining-room/evening-menu). We really wanted to try everything! We begun with the Rare Thai Beef and Bocconcini & Baby Beets. We were a little embarrassed in ourselves when discovering that ‘Rare’ was referring to ‘not cooked’ opposed to ‘not common’ – perhaps we are the common ones – but nevertheless it was a flavoursome, enjoyable dish! Quite the highlight actually.

After tasting the White Swan Ale, a beer made specifically for this establishment, we moved onto our mains. Oh, and by the way, the Ale is good – quite sweet on the palette, it reminded me more of a weissbier. We shared two mains, wanting to both try the goodness that the chef had to offer. We had the Chicken Breast (stuffed with spinach, pine nuts, and feta on a base of thyme and port wine glaze, accompanied with kumara). Holy smokes, it was sumptuous! Nuff said. Try it! We also had the Fish of the Day and were quite lucky tMorehat we came on the ‘Salmon’ day. We love Salmon. And the chef cooked it to perfection…it melted in our mouths.

To top it all off, we requested that we retire to our room upstairs and receive our dessert there (so we could eat it in the bath like Kings and Queens). They more than happily obliged! So half an hour later we were relaxing in the bath eating Triple Chocolate Fudge Baileys Ice-Cream Torte (5 stars) and White/Dark Chocolate Cheesecake (3.5 stars relative to the 5 star torte which was incredible). That’s the life eh!

A slightly later checkout time in the morning topped the whole experience off. From start to finish, for a short time, we took a break from our hectic lives, in paradise. The service was exceptional, the food was fine dining at its finest, and the themed rooms/design aesthetic has been pulled off to a high standard!

We have absolutely no reason not to recommend that anyone spend the night upstairs and downstairs at the White Swan Hotel, Greytown.

A gem in crown of Greytown. Great food at a reasonable price. The setting is really casual and relaxing. The staff were all really friendly and seemed to know a fair bit about wine and didn’t mind sharing their knowledge.
Recommended!

Four of us ate there on Jan 4th. Ordered steak sandwiches and were told we could only have them well done (too hard for cook to do different I guess.) Paid $20.00 for the worse burger ever. Dry and burnt pattie hardly any salad. Told couldnt add an egg to my burger. Didnt have mayonaise as an alternative to ketchup. Wont ever go back there again.

A new winter menu is as great as the old summer menu.Great staff, helpful and knowledgeable except i have to say for the Mexican? waiter , his English and attitude need looking at!!. That aside the place is fresh and clean good size menu and the food arrived in good time , hot and tasty.My husband had the lamb shank and i had the fish and chips, both excellent dishes and value for money.Just wish we had more time to spend in grey town the accommodation we were shown by a very polite waitress called Rebbecca looked lovely. Next time we know where we are staying and eating. Thank you white swan