New Zealand Herald

Reviews for Andrea Restaurant

by Sarah
28th December 2011

I thought I would take the entire family out for a nice dinner for some celebrations. My brother got the steak, which as an enthusiast, he claimed was “hands down the worst steak I have ever tasted in my life”. I had a taste and the sauce was absolutely inedible. But for the sake of the $30 we had paid, he struggled through it. My mother got the salmon risotto, which resembled, for lack of a better description, orange vomit. It tasted too salty and could have at least put SOME effort into presentation. My sister’s vegetarian spaghetti tasted like plain spaghetti thrown into a bowl of tomato juice. It was far too watery, and tasteless. I had the seafood chowder entree, which was probably better than the mains, but still not very nice. The taste was too strong, and I know its a “seafood chowder” but it was just TOO fishy. I am no master chef, but I know that this food was definitely not worth the money we paid! We left the restaurant feeling unsatisfied, still hungry (portions weren’t very generous either!), and full of regret. The whole time I was there I was tempted to bring the chef out and demand him to try his own food. Cute little place in a good location, need to do something about their food!!!

by Joanna G.
20th August 2011

I booked early in the day and arrived on time to a table ready and waiting for us my the fire. A brilliant start went horribly wrong from then on.

I mentioned I had a daily do voucher when the maitre’d sat us and showed him my voucher on my iPhone. He looked at it in confusion and said he thinks the boss will need a print out. I reassured him it was fine to show electronically and for him to take down the code to check and cross off his master list. He then argued with me and said no the boss needs the paper copy. I asked him to send the boss my way so I could discuss with him myself. He said if I wanted to speak to the boss I had to go to him. I said no I will not be getting up and going to look for the boss and that if there is a problem that he come to me.

We opened our byo bottle and started drinking our wine. A chef came over soon after and told us we could not use the voucher unless it was printed and that he would lose his job otherwise. This was very disturbing for me. I asked if he was the boss and if not could I speak with him. He said the boss was not there and we could not use the voucher this time.
We had already started drinking our byo bottle and I told him we would not be staying if we could not use the voucher I had paid for. He then said that he would pay for our pizza out of his own pay check for us to stay because he would lose his job if he let us use the voucher.

Needless to say we did not want this. We started packing up our table to leave and the maitre’d came to say that we could now stay and use our voucher.

We left regardless and will never go back. A very rude unhelpful experience that embarrassed us and made them just look silly.

by Marsha L.
10th March 2011

Love this place! A fabulous local with great service and really yummy Italian.
The pizza’s are very good and the home-made Tortellini is delicious! Highly recommend for a lovely casual night out.

by jim
17th December 2009

Friendly service .If you know your “genuine Italian food” so well go back to pizza hut ,but if you want properly cooked Italian food at a cheap price I’d recommend it . If you don’t think it’s freshly made try one of the classes and make your own,I saw about a dozen young girls having a ball at about an 8th birthday party . And no I don’t work there . Loved the marlin entree and the crayfish pasta…

by John W.
16th November 2009

I took my wife for lunch today for our wedding anniversary – she decided on Italian so we rocked up without a reservation to Andreas. This was our first visit and will be our last!

The Italian waiter (I think) suggested that we eat outside when my wife had intimated that we wanted to eat inside. We figured that they were may be short staffed and wanted to use limited tables so despite the chilly wind we sat outside.

I told the waiter that this was our wedding anniversary and that we would like to have a couple of drinks before hand. Having said that I mentioned that when we were ready I would probably have the white bait fritters and my wife mentioned the risotto. May be he didn’t understand english too well but the food arrived before we had even got through our first drink!!

The risotto seriously was a disgrace – I mean Master Chef would have spat the dummy. Devoid of any garnishing or colour or accompanying salads etc it resembled dog vomit!! Fortunately it tasted okay but would score 1/10 for presentation being devoid of even the slightest imagination.

The white bait fritters were a little better – however on the advertising board it noted white bait fritters (plural). I got one which looked and tasted like an egg omlette.

We decided to leave after this also noting that there were now patrons sitting inside.

I am now fifty seven years old and don’t recall having left a restaurant and driving ten minutes down the road to another restarant and having another lunch quite so soon!!

Wasn’t what I had planned.

by chappo
28th June 2009

Ordinary at best.

Service – ok – waitress never came over to the table except when asked but always got what we asked for when we asked for it.

Food – below average – $15 for a small pizza. Mash was instant. The special Gnocchi wasn’t great and our other dinner guests’ meal was rated average at best.

by Karen G.
26th April 2007

This is my favourite Italian experience in Auckland. The owner Andrea is interactive with his patrons, and the Italian food is fabulous. A delicious place to dine.

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