Dining
The Norfolk Room from seven in the morning, Bar Chevron until one at night, and a short list sent up in between.
The Norfolk Room
Sixty-four covers in what was the 1936 tearoom, with the windows facing the pines that give the room its name and an open kitchen where the servery used to be.
Rachel Ngatai has run this kitchen since 2018, after nine years in Wellington and two in Lyon. The menu is short on purpose — eight mains, changed when the growers change rather than when the season is officially declared over. Hawke's Bay does the heavy lifting: stone fruit and apples from the Heretaunga plains, lamb off the hills behind Havelock North, snapper and gurnard landed at Ahuriri that morning, and vegetables from four growers within thirty kilometres.
Breakfast comes with the room and is open to anybody else who walks in. Dinner is à la carte every night, with a set table of six courses on the last Friday of the month. Booking is sensible from Thursday and necessary through February.
Roughly what is on it
- To beginAhuriri oysters · smoked kahawai · beef tartare
- Out of the baySnapper · gurnard · crayfish in season
- Off the hillsHavelock North lamb · dry-aged sirloin · duck
- Without meatHeretaunga vegetables · pasta made here · mushrooms
- To finishStone fruit · Hawke's Bay cheeses · a proper trifle
Hours and particulars
- Breakfast7.00 – 10.30 daily
- Lunch12.00 – 2.30 daily
- Dinner5.30 – 9.30 daily
- Set tableLast Friday of the month, one sitting at 6.30
- AllergiesTell us when you book
- ChildrenWelcome at every service
- DressTidy at dinner
Bar Chevron
Named for the zigzag glasswork behind the counter, which came out of the 1936 build and has been broken exactly once, in 1974, by a wedding party nobody will name.
Thirty-two Hawke's Bay wines by the glass, kept under nitrogen so the last pour matches the first. Twelve cocktails on New Zealand gin, whisky and vermouth — none of them needing a paragraph of explanation. Beer on tap from Ahuriri, two kilometres up the road.
Small plates until midnight: oysters, cheese, a plate of Hawke's Bay charcuterie, and the only burger in the building. No booking before six.
- OpenNoon – 1.00am daily
- KitchenUntil midnight
- By the glass32
- PianoFriday and Saturday from eight
Three hundred labels, and most of them local
Hawke's Bay is the oldest wine region in the country and the warmest of the serious ones, so the list leans on it without apologising. Chardonnay first, then syrah out of Gimblett Gravels, then the Bordeaux blends that the gravels were planted for in the first place.
The rest is Martinborough pinot, a short Champagne page, and a few oddities the sommelier bought because she liked them. She pours a flight of five Hawke's Bay chardonnays on Thursday evenings for up to twelve people — NZ$65 a head, booked at the desk.
- LabelsAbout 300
- From Hawke's BayAround two thirds
- Thursday flight5 chardonnays · NZ$65 · 12 seats
- CorkageNZ$25 a bottle
The Chart Room table
One table for fourteen in a panelled room off the stair hall, with its own door to the lawn. Used for birthdays, board dinners and the occasional wedding party that would rather not sit in a ballroom.
Set menus of three or five courses, matched from the cellar if you want them to be. The chef comes out and talks it through first — not as a flourish, but because that is how the menu gets decided.
- Seats14 at one table
- MenusThree or five courses
- MinimumNZ$1,150 at dinner
- NoticeA week
Sent up to the room
A short card, available whenever there is somebody in the kitchen — which is most of the day and a fair part of the night. Nothing arrives under a dome and there is no tray charge.
Seven in the morning to eleven at night you can have the full in-room card: breakfast, sandwiches, a pasta, soup, the burger and a cheese plate. Between eleven and seven there is a night card of five things, cooked by the same kitchen that feeds the Marine Room upstairs.
In the Bluff, Chevron and Penthouse grades breakfast can be laid in the suite at a time you choose. Arrange it with the desk the evening before.
- Full card7.00am – 11.00pm
- Night card11.00pm – 7.00am
- Tray chargeNone
- Breakfast in the suiteOn request, evening before
Book a table, or the whole room
The Norfolk Room, the Thursday chardonnay flight and the Chart Room table all go through the same desk.