chancery bistro

revamp your chocolate cake desert cos cut up small pieces of fruit and berry coulis just doesn't work. stick to the menu with your hazelnut fudge and vanilla ice cream. good location. cigar friendly and hot chocolate was good. liquor selection is a bit thin.

great location for relaxing dining in the city with friends and family. went out with group of workmates for lunch. could not find any reason to fault. great staff and excellent food. recommend seafood chowder for a great meal. thanks guys.

we visited last week with a voucher for a 3 course set meal. the restaurant was basically empty when we arrived (2-3 tables of people). we ordered calamari to start, steak for main and creme brûlée to finish. we waited around 30 minutes for the calamari and when it arrived we were disappointed as it was incredibly greasy and the batter wasn't very nice. we then waited approx 1.5 hours for our mains which was ridiculous seeing as there was hardly any diners there. the waitress kept apologising and saying our food would be brought out in a few minutes (it actually took 45 minutes from when we asked). the table next to us had half their mains delivered and the rest 25 minutes later! when the food finally arrived it wasn't nice at all. my steak was well done and very burnt - i asked for med rare, potato was lumpy and overall everything was tasteless. dessert was okay but by this point we were over the whole experience. manager apologised and gave us two drinks for free. we had an awful experience and will never be returning!!

we went in last night for dinner with our grabone voucher and had a horrible experience. this place is not family friendly and coordination between front-end staff and the kitchen is appalling.

firstly, my wife and i with two infants arrived around 6:40pm and were seated outside next to smokers and the like - that's a rather idiotic management decision. after we were seated, we placed our order fairly quickly as we wanted to finish dinner quickly so we can go for a walk. the entree came out fairly quickly, and was quite nice but after that everything went down hill.

after finishing our entree, we had to wait about 50 minutes for our mains and kids meal to arrive. we asked four times for how our meal was coming along and the response was "we are sorry it's busy". the restaurant was barely half full. also, we notice several tables receive their orders before ours, and what they ordered looked exactly like what we ordered. when we received our mains, my wife's steak was cold - couldn't be bothered complaining then since it was close to 8:30pm and we needed to finish dinner and leave. the dessert weren't nothing special. we both felt sick afterwards.

when it started getting dark, it got cold outside but nothing was done to help us keep warm to offered to be moved inside.

when we came to pay, i had come learn that they had stuffed up our order and were adamant on charging us for it. then a man (i guess was the manager) stepped in to not charge us for the things we didn't order. next we were charged $95, even after surrendering out grabone voucher when we arrived.

this place is horrible and we will never be returning again. the food and server is mediocre at best.

being the only customers at that time of the morning it was great. also great was their creamy mushrooms and chorizo dish we decided for breakfast. very tasty indeed and the generous portions also. this dish is served with roasted potato also which taste a bit old though...coffee was great that i ordered another and the service prompt and friendly.
update: dinner service was fantastic. most of our 11 dishes delicious. wine and complimentary wine served cold and silver service styles. the establishment gifted us extra starters which was very kind and appreciated. everyone who dined was impressed with the bistro, food - apart from the steak which hadn't been cut properly according to our steak eaters - dessert was devine. i had the creme brulee. for our evening lovely i've changes my rating.

fantastic food! came here with my girlfriend for a dinner on sunday. had great service, nice and warm in the cold weather. we've ordered two scotch fillet which were incredible, better than expected and steak was so juicy. would definitely come back!😋

chancery has always been our favorite destination in the cbd.
we went out for dinner last night with our grabone voucher. we made our booking on line and was confirmed promptly. 
the place was buzzing with people and it was great to see the new lights installed in chancery though i miss the fairy lights.
our meals arrived as we finished each course on time and was made to our taste that we come for more to this place.
we will be back for more.....

do not go here! i am usually not one to complain, but i must say that this was the worst dining experience ever. 
i went to the chancery bistro on a thursday, mid-morning for brunch with a group of friends, you would expect the service to be exceptional as we were the only party there, yet this was not the case. immediately we were met with a waitress who clearly acted as if she did not want to be there. to be frank, she was rude and abrupt, when taking our orders she was dismissive which eventually led to her getting the entire table’s food orders wrong, despite each of us clearly pointing to the dishes on the menu. when we queried her mistake, she acknowledged that she knew and ‘was going to tell us about it eventually’, yet offered no apology and continued on her way. this had already set the experience on a low which later was exacerbated when we went to pay. i was wanting to use an entertainment book voucher, but was scolded by the manager that i needed to inform him prior to ordering as ‘clearly stated in the rules’ (this is not the case for the entertainment book, but rather for grabone vouchers), and he preceded to question me, ‘can you speak english?’. he eventually realised his mistake and attempted an apology, and informed me to ‘use my voucher next time as the machine is not working’. all in all, i paid in full for the worst dining experience ever; there will not be a next time.

so i feel really bad giving this place a fairly low score as i suppose it's not really their fault. the food in this place overall was very good. the squid was cooked well, the steak slightly undercooked, i like my steak on the rare side anyway and would much prefer undercooked then overcooked. my partners chicken was a bit chewy or stringy but certainly tasty, if i'm being a perfectionist i could say slightly overcooked. the creme brûlée was absolutely perfect however and my partner and i had to fight for it. so food wise this place is about a 3.5 to 4. the service was excellent and we were fed three courses within 45 minutes, which is incredibly fast. the only thing that lets this place down is the next door bar which blasts house music so people in wellington can hear it. it's so loud i couldn't even hear what my partner was saying across from me. if i was the owner of this place i would seriously consider taking legal action against the next door bar as the music is so loud it drives away other customers wanting to simply eat and talk. i would probably come back here again but i would probably check the bar next doors hours to make sure i was gone before base hunter gets blasted at war bleed volume.

we bought a grabone voucher a while back for a 3 course dinner with wine - such a great deal! for entree, the turkish bread & hummus was sooo good, and the calamari was good too. for main we both got the steak which was okay but not amazing. dessert was also pretty good. it's really nice sitting outside if the weather is nice.

came here on a grabone voucher but had issues with reservations as on the phone i was told they were fully booked for the next three days. after telling the man we only wanted a reservation for that evening and we were going to refund the voucher he said "oh we will most likely have some cancellations" and slotted us in at 7:00pm. when we arrived we were very surprised to see only one other table out of about 30 tables. the only waitress on was eating her dinner and got up half way through to seat us and then we were looked after by a man (assuming the man on the phone). the service from then on was very strange and seemed uneasy (like they had no idea what was going on) but the food was really good so can't fault them on that. a few drinks on the menu were not available which was a let down.

like many others we came here on a grabone voucher. have to say the whole experience was quite awkward. it was a thursday night and upon calling for an appointment for the voucher we were told there were absolutely no free reservations and we'd have to wait until at least sunday to get a table for 2. after saying we were after something that night and might cancel our voucher we were told the tables would be shuffled and we'd have a spot at 7pm. funny part is when we arrived there was perhaps one other couple there, all the tables were empty!!!
the staff were incredibly awkward despite friendly and it was as if they didn't know how to talk to us?
food was pretty good, nothing exceptional apart from the salt and pepper squid as a starter which was amazing and i didn't want it to end! snapper was beautifully cooked although the salsa it was meant to come with was missing from the plate. good food, awesome place, average service. probably wouldn't go back because of the sheer amount of other places around and this one just lacks something special

came for brunch on a rainy day. chancery has always had a great atmosphere, and bistro contribute well to it. the service was also very friendly. for food, i recommend what i had; the lunch recommendation - morrocan spicy grilled chicken (w/lentals, chickpeas, lemon, yoghurt sauce) and it was superb. chicken grilled just right, seasoning went well the sauce. i would definitely come for any other meal, for any other circumstance whether it is for a special occassion or just a caual food-date with friends, this plave definitely recommended!

came here last week for breakfast and it was pretty well cooked, so well done to the breakfast chefs, but the menu itself should be changed as well as the head chef. this place is quite dead, front of house is polite as well as service buuuut theres no buzz or hype and the food isnt up to scratch. i ordered chowder when i went in for lunch. ive had better. the flour in that chowder wasnt well cooked out, and the taste wasnt good at all. too gluggy. wont be back.

i came here for a work function and it was lovely
great atmosphere and very fresh and rich dishes
there was a great variety of dishes from vegetarian, chicken, lamb and seafood
i ordered the seafood chowder which was nice and creamy.