Dining
Moturiki Kitchen & The Pilot Bay Bar
Moturiki Kitchen & The Pilot Bay Bar
Moturiki Kitchen faces east and does breakfast and dinner. The Pilot Bay Bar faces the harbour side, opens at noon, and is where most of the house ends up between four and six. Both are open to people who are not staying here, and both take bookings on +64 7 575 4180.
Eighty-four seats, eighteen of them at the east windows, named for the small island at the end of the beach. Head chef since 2018 is a Tauranga woman who did her apprenticeship in Wellington and came home; the kitchen brigade is nine, and two of them have been here since the hotel opened.
The idea is not complicated: most of what is on the plate comes from within an hour of the door. Snapper, kingfish and gurnard off the Tauranga boats, landed the same morning. Avocados from Katikati. Citrus and kiwifruit from Te Puke, twenty-five minutes east. Ōhiwa oysters when they are good, which is not all year. Lamb and beef from inland Bay of Plenty.
The menu changes four times a year and there is a shorter version of it on the board that changes when the boats come in. If the gurnard was better than the snapper that morning, the board says so.
Nothing on this list is a signature dish in the tiresome sense — they come and go with the season. But these are the things people write to us about:
Breakfast is cooked to order rather than sitting under a lamp. The eggs come from a farm at Katikati and there is a proper coffee machine with someone who knows how to use it, from half past six.
On the harbour side of the house, named for the bay where the pilot boats go out to bring the container ships through the entrance. Forty-eight seats inside and twenty-four on the terrace, which is the part everyone wants between four and six in the afternoon.
A hundred and forty labels on the wine list. Thirty are from the Bay of Plenty and Gisborne — the chardonnay especially, which is the thing this coast does better than anywhere — and the rest is mostly the rest of New Zealand, with a short French and Italian section for people who ask. Eleven beers on tap, all from breweries within forty minutes of here.
The cocktail list is fourteen long and half of it is built on New Zealand gin and whisky. There is a bar snack menu until midnight and a short supper menu out of Moturiki Kitchen until 1am, which is the only kitchen in Mount Maunganui doing hot food at that hour on a Tuesday.
One room off Moturiki Kitchen, one table, sixteen chairs. A set menu agreed beforehand, and the kitchen will build it around whatever the occasion is. No hire charge; a minimum spend applies on Fridays and Saturdays.
7am to 10.30pm, from a menu of about eighteen things — the short version of the restaurant list, plus a club sandwich that is ordered more than anything else on it. NZ$8 tray charge. After 10.30pm, reception can still find you a cold plate.
The Matakana Room seats 140 for dinner or takes 190 standing. The Omanu Room holds 40, and Boardroom No. 2 seats 12 around one table with a screen at the end of it. Weddings, conferences, and birthdays that run later than planned.
Ring +64 7 575 4180 at any hour, or send the form and we will confirm by email. For the eighteen window seats at Moturiki Kitchen, and for anything in January, book well ahead.
Tell us when you book, not when you sit down — the kitchen would much rather plan for it than improvise. Coeliac, dairy, nuts, vegan: all straightforward with notice.
The Beacon Room at Oceanic Manor is reserved for adults aged 20 and over, in line with New Zealand law. The rest of the hotel — the rooms, Moturiki Kitchen and The Saltwater Bathhouse — welcomes guests of every age.
Gambling Helpline 0800 654 655 · free, any hour
We are sorry — we cannot let you through. If you would like to talk to someone about gambling, the Gambling Helpline is 0800 654 655, free, any hour.