'The Cellar Door' is the place to go for a memorable wine-tasting experience!…read more Foxes Island offers a delicious selection of white and red wine including Pinot Noir (2008/09), Chardonnay (2009), Riesling (2009), Sauvignon Blanc (2011/12) and lastly, Lapine (2010) from the 'Icon' Series, equivalent to their hero wine. From walking in the 'Cellar Door' on Williamson Avenue, to greeting one of the team from Foxes Island, to tasting a drop of your choice, to taking in the ambience of artwork from Dick Frizzell is definitely a hedonistic experience, for any wine and/or art lover. They have monthly masterclasses to educate and showcase their wine, along with other speakers and artists intermittently. Open 6 days a week as well! Yelp out.

We're so lucky to have such a wonderful cellar door right on our doorstop! Foxes Island, of course…read moresells Foxes Island wine but they also have a lot more going on in their beautiful space. They sell the amazing Zalto glassware, which is beautiful and dishwasher friendly plus they host a ton of events be it exhibitions, meet the maker nights to new vintages of their wines. Owners, Kelly and John are lovely and well-respected in the wine industry. Highly recommend popping and picking up a bottle (or case) of their beautiful wine!

Fantastic little winery featuring feijoa liquor and many delicious liquors to choose from! The…read moreowner, Danny, is very knowledgeable and makes it worth visiting the winery even if you don't drink! He had us try a dozen different liquors and several wines while regaling us with the amusing history of the feijoa. My favorites were the limoncello and the ginger liquor. Highly recommend a stop here if you are visiting the Coromandel area.

Best tasting I've ever experienced! Danny let us try all the different fruit liquors from the farm…read moreand told us the history behind the region, all in a very funny and entertaining way. He even ran down the hill to grab us some feijoas to try. It's clear the proprietors care deeply about both their customers and their business. Plus the view was SPECTACULAR. We bought a bunch of bottles to take home and will definitely return next time we're in the area. HIGHLY recommend!

My husband and I were visiting Auckland for a few days, and we had the pleasure of having Phil to…read moreourselves for a tour of the fish market and several shops that specialize in products of New Zealand. We also toured three wineries for tastings, with lunch at one of them, and Phil provided a wonderful array of cheeses to accompany the tastings. Phil's knowledge of the wineries and of New Zealand, in general, made our tour fun and educational as well! We can truly say that the day with Phil was our favorite of all our excursions in New Zealand. We would highly recommend him and hope to have the pleasure of engaging his services in the future.

From the owner: Personal Tour Guide - Phil Parker is your host. Phil is a fourth generation New Zealander and has…read morebeen running his highly recommended, one-man tour company since 2000. Phil is also a local wine writer, and published author of Random House's 'The Mad Keen Wine Buff's Road Trip' Phil will show you the beautiful Auckland wine growing countryside and breath-taking coastline. His wine tours aren't just for the serious wine enthusiast. They are for anyone who's keen to enjoy NZ's world-famous wines, share our beautiful scenery - and most of all - have fun! Phil looks forward to meeting you.

Wow, went last weekend on a magic day Went to the casual…read morerestaurant and had half the menu it was so good Service was great really good vibe Bread starter is a must Loved it

We walked into the bistro ready to have a terrific dinner experience based on their website photos…read moreand the warm, inviting appearance as we walked up. The ambiance was nice and felt like a cozy ski lodge. However, the hostess wasn't exactly warm or charming. She seemed to have a bit of a control issue. When we moved one of the 2 chairs at the 4-top to another side of the table, she expressed her displeasure and stated that we had to make sure that we gave the table next to us enough space, but there was definitely enough room for a small pony to walk through. The server was pretentious. The vibe we got was that he was busy with something else and could barely be bothered to share the specials and take our order. Because we weren't getting a great vibe, we decided just to order overpriced drinks instead of drinks and overpriced food. Do NOT order the old fashioned unless you like them super sweet. My husband is a fan of old fashioneds and had never had a ridiculously sugary drink as this before. The espresso martini was okay. Definitely not worth $26 though. This place is definitely overrated.

What a sweet find! Great service and wonderful wine!!! Stop by to enjoy the fine selection of wines…read moreand eating from full fare to sweet dessert assortments :) You will want to return a second time and third time...Please share your experiences and add to the Family Atmosphere!!! Cousy and super fantastic!!!

Quaint little yummy restaurant! The food was divine. The sous chef is a vegan so the vegetarian and…read moreGF options were top notch. The service was some of the best I have received while in NZ; very attentive without hovering. The entrance is just across from parking for the Karangahake Gorge bike path. I'm definitely keeping this spot in mind for a wedding location!

Definitely definitely definitely give this place a miss- there are so many cafes with fantastic…read morefood around town now, which are far superior to Mills Reef. This is really a convention centre masquerading as a restaurant- it lacks atmosphere and refinement. For a restaurant which considers itself 'fine dining' the staff, food and dining room lack finesse. We made a booking for a very special occasion for 11.30am. When we arrived we were told that if we ordered within 5 minutes we could order from the brunch menu as opposed to the lunch menu. This appealed to 3 out of 4 of our guests. When the maitre'd came back to us to take our order, he refused to let one guest order from the lunch menu, and the other three from the brunch menu. He said that the chefs don't allow one table to order from different menus. While incredibly frustrating, this wasn't the end of the world. We eventually all ordered- and three meals arrived all at once. We had to wait over 5 minutes for the last meal to arrive. All of the hot meals were served on cold plates! It made for a really unenjoyable experience. One of the hot meals arrived absolutely stone cold, and the bacon was severely undercooked- bordering on raw. We sent the cold meal back, and it arrived back at the table 10 minutes later having been obviously microwaved (everything, including the toast was nuked but soggy). In the mean time another member of our party had ordered a side of hollandaise sauce, because the hollandaise had been omitted from their eggs bene for some reason? It took over 10 minutes for the hollandaise to arrive at the table, and it had completely curdled and been cooked on top- it was like scrambled eggs and completely inedible. Overall the experience was horrendous. I can't recommend this place less. It's not even about the price point- but you can get a far superior meal from an upmarket cafe for a much cheaper price in town. Don't buy in to the hype- Mills Reef is incredibly dated, and the food is absolutely abysmal. To apologise for the horrible experience, we were given a $4 discount on our bill, which is borderline insulting. We didn't want or expect a discount, and were happy to pay and just never return. But after the appalling meal and service, to only offer a $4 discount? Don't even bother offering a discount at all. Unbelievable. Never again.

Good food. Our table ordered a varied selection of Mains and desserts. I ordered an eye fillet…read morewhich was cooked perfectly although I would have expected more veges on the plate. For dessert I ordered a chocolate mousse which was delish. My wife have a cheese board which was expectationaly generous. The decor is a bit inconsistent. Where we sat it felt Like sitting in a factory. Would visit again when in the area.

Amazing Sunday lunch here .... we came for a late lunch about 130. And there is no more outdoor…read moreseat so we decided to wait till we are seat with an outdoor table as the weather is too good to be indoor! Okay, view is amazing, food is so good and wine is awesome... what more do I want? An easy 5 star for me!

Superb Service, awesome hospitality, beautiful views, and a delicious lunch!…read more Day two in our New Zealand adventure, care of Villa Maria, we finally got a chance to meet some of folks who work for the company that made our trip possible. We were toured around the winery and shown where the wine is taken in, where its bottled, filtered, labeled and then packed away. They produce 200,000 bottles of wine a day! We were also shown the locations of their different vineyards throughout New Zealand and the unique qualities of each vineyard. These qualities affect the flavor profile of the grapes used for wine. Did I mention they have certified organic wines too? How impressive,I say! After the tour, we had lunch at the cafe. We got the best seat of the house; outside and in front of the wonderful green winery view. Oh my, how delicious everything was!! I had the Fish of the day which was Halibut and mashed potatoes in a lemony butter sauce while my sister opted for the Duck confit. For dessert, we had the rhubarb cheescake which had an appealing presentation and raspberry sherbet namalaka. We devoured all of our food and probably didn't need to eat for another day or so. I ate more than I usually do and I have no regrets. It was all that good! Bottom line, our trip here was wonderful! Need I say more?

I had the best time on the Coast to Coast tour - definitely one of the highlights of my trip to New…read moreZealand! John was a fantastic and knowledgeable host, and he impressively runs all of these tours on his own. There are several different ones to choose from, but I believe he only runs 1 per day, so make sure you contact him well in advance to get the tour you want. I ended up making a last minute reservation and it just so happened he was running the tour I wanted the next day. I chose the Coast to Coast tour because I had limited time in Auckland and wanted to get a feel for both the east and west coast regions and wineries. We visited 5 wineries total and got to sample a plethora of wines at each one. We also got to enjoy a beautiful and delicious platter lunch at Ransom Wines against a stunning backdrop. The price of the tour was very reasonable with the 5 winery visits, lunch, door-to-door transportation, and tour guide. All very high quality, and much less expensive than the other wine tour companies I researched. Overall a fantastic experience - highly recommended!

I and my friend from Japan, we had very good time together with this tour…read more Waterfalls and sightseeing, Karekare Beach where has black sand, wine tastings... All good We had nice platter lunch, we wish we could had more time to enjoy our beatiful lunch and wine though. But we learn N.Z. culture as well. It was amazing day! John, Thank you for everything.

We went in a group of 6 with a reservation. You'll need to make a reservation or you might not get…read morein. This is owned by an Italian so you'll see menu items similar to visiting in Italy. We had pizzas, drinks, appetizers. Loved it all! Service was fast and friendly. Loved the sampler of wines and Italian drinks, like spritzers.

Make a booking in advance and try to get the 1st time slot of the day. We were the first ones at…read morethe restaurant and did a wine tasting. It was really peaceful. After 2 hours there were more and more people that showed up. Get the Solo Carne pizza. It was incredible! I am back in the states and still thinking about it!