jervois steak house

in my opinion the best steak restaurant in auckland. the steak is always perfectly cooked. but what beats that are the accompaniments... ask the waiter to recommend the right sauce,sidesand wine to match... you will not be disappointed. the staffs knowledge of wine and food is top notch.

wow…….just wow ….since changing hands the quality has gone down hill and the portion sizes are pathetic!!! half a rack of lamb 🐑 $48 !!!! withoutsides!!!! wtf!!!!! dined there last sunday …omg !!!! rip off !!!!!

beautiful establishment. service was impeccable. 9pm booking on a friday night and they don’t rush you.
entree, ordered the white bait fritters and the grill prawns. i thought the egg overpowered the actual taste of the white bait. the lemon butter sauce was more on the lemon side but it paired well with the fritter. the grill prawns was out of this world scrumptious. had to suck out the juices from the heads. cooked perfectly and the flat bread that came with it went well with scooping up the sauce and the prawn juice.
for mains, we ordered the chicken bread with harissa sauce and t-bone steak.
this was the only place that had the curtesy of bringing out your choice of steak raw and showing it to you what you’ll be eating. i thought that was an awesome practice on their part. this steak was the biggest we’ve ever seen and the biggest my partner ate. he enjoyed it thoroughly and was cooked exactly to his preference. for $97 for the steak alone, you’d think it’ll come withsidesbut no. you have to order thesidesseparately. you get a choice of 2 sauces and we chose the jalapeño hollandaise & bernaise sauce. both went well but the jalapeño hollandaise stood out more. my chicken breast was cooked perfectly. not dry not rubber, just chefs kiss perfect. chicken was on a silver beet with harissa. cannot fault anything in this dish. all the flavours worked well together. forsideswe ordered candied kumara with pecans. the sweetness of the kumara worked well with freshly roasted pecans. the whipped potato was nothing special. very bland no seasoning. the herb slaw with pecans was refreshing and i thought it cuts down the richness of the candied kumara. finally for dessert we had the pavlova with passion fruit curd and lycheesl ice cream. this was a beautiful ending to a wonderful meal. pavlova had a crispy shell but soft inside with a gush of passion fruit curd. lychee ice cream was subtle. went well with the tanginess of the curd.
overall experience at jsh was beautiful. between the 2 of us our bill came to $314 lol.
it’s on the pricier side of dining but its something you have to experience once in a lifetime especially if you’re a steak fanatic.

12.dec.2020
my partner felt like “a good piece of steak”. when we ordered a5 mbs12 wagyu, we didn’t know it was the rarest, highest quality piece of beef in the world. we also ordered picanha (rump cap) as our youtube meat guru insists this is the cut to go for.

the a5 wagyu met every expectation we had of “a good piece of steak” and more. it cut effortlessly and had the most subtle resistance, exploding with sweet juices when chewed. it was unimaginably tender - a memorable 🥲 food experience.

the a5 was so good, no sauces needed, that the rump cap got left in the dust, but this was perfectly cooked as well. all thesidescame in generous portions (3sidesfor $27). a decent wine selection, and a very friendly italian waiter also, who kept my glass of sparkling water topped up the whole night.

i was sad to conclude our “good piece of steak” experience, but now have a favourite steakhouse, and food to look forward to on our next special occasion.

i ordered the salmon which was beautifully cooked and very oceanic. the highlight of my dish was probably the broccolini which i would have gladly eaten a whole plate of. forsideswe ordered the fries, onion rings and creamed spinach which were all winners in their own ways. ev’s steak was honestly so average and made me happy i ordered fish at a steakhouse. all i want to know is why?? the wagyu honestly just felt like i was eating sirloin from the supermarket and was nothing special. would i recommend jervois steak house? if you want bombsidesthen yes. if you want some delicious cocktails or mocktails then yes (the pink chihuahua was both delicious and lethal). if you want service with great chat then yes. if you want closely spaced tables where you can eavesdrop on other peoples conversations as you eat your dinner then yes. if you want a well cooked steak to write home about then no, please save your coin. my overall rating of jervois steak house would have to be one big meh, no thank you. never again.

the good - the steak; the not so good - nosidesincluded and impersonal service.

i ordered the zen noh - the most expensive cut of meat and it was incredible. i found it crazy that it didn’t come with anysidesand ordered the candied kumara and pecans - which was nice.

the service was ok and felt impersonal. this was a one off visit for me after the experience.

i’ve been waiting a long time to try jervois and sadly won’t be coming back. we had the scallops to start with, which were not bad but the crackling that came with it looked like the crackling snack you get from the liquor store. we then ordered the wagyu scotch and a petite eye fillet and asked for both to be medium rear, i could honstly say i could have played hand ball or thrown it at the wall and it would have bounced back at me. it was so well done that the knife wouldn’t cut through it. thesideswere 30 buks and pretty much out of a frezzer bag, your local bar would smash a better onion ring made from scratch, dokha on broccoli thats a herb for a confused place not a steak house lets keep it simple dont waste your money and save your fuel. don't be fooled by the reviews

we've been coming to jervois steak house since they opened and have always loved the place but this time was definitely a letdown to the point where i'm not sure id be back in a hurry. when we sat down, the table next to us sent their steaks back for being undercooked. after watching this happen we were of the opinion that "who in their right mind would send back a steak unless it was completely uneatable" and wrote them off as difficult customers. when our steaks arrived they were massively overcooked, we asked for medium rare and these were well done.. when we pointed this out to the waiter he was very defensive and told us we were wrong. he then had the nerve to suggest it was the poor lighting in the restaurant and that we should shine the torch on our iphones on it to get a better look. until i cut into the centre and showed him then he told us he could send them back but because of time constraints we couldnt wait another 20 mins for some new steaks. we both struggled away through them but couldnt continue and left most of it. thesidesat $10 each weren't much better, the chips were so overcooked we could barely eat them, the creamed spinach which by the way is usually amazing and a personal favourite over the last 3 years contained no cream that we could distinguish and was just a bunch of blended spinach and the rest of thesideswere massively under-seasoned. it just simply wasn't enjoyable and if i'm completely honest i might as well been at cobb and co. that's how underwhelming it was. i'm the last person to ever complain about food in a restaurant as i feel empathy for chefs who work hard in a kitchen all night, and have never sent back food in my life never mind give a scathing review on zomato.. as long as its roughly ok i will happily eat it but this was simply not up to par. i think if you are charging $53 for a steak and have the word steak in your restaurant name then you should above anything else be able to cook the steak to perfection.

we came here for a birthday celebratory dinner as a group of six. the ambience was intimate and authentic. our waiter (cannot recall his name) looked after us well, he was friendly and energetic. we started off with bread and each of us ordered a steak with accompanyingsidesto share. i had ordered the wagyu firstlight scotch ($69), which was shown to me in all its raw marbling glory before being cooked to medium perfection. each bite melted in my mouth and i was in steak heaven. i can say the same for everyone else at our table.

it was overall an enjoyable night.

food was amazing. chefs plater with 3sidesand we could finish it all. steak were delicious. would definitely go back. the waiter was amazing as well.

peculiar experience at one of aucklands premier steak houses. you definitely cannot go wrong with a steak from jervois. this review will have two sections. one section which focuses on the actual food and the other on the other factors that determines ones restaurant experience. focusing on the food, i would highly recommend jervois for its steaks, if you’re are a cold blooded carnivore or a steak enthusiast then you simply must try jervois. i found that there was a surprisingly freshness to my steak which highlighted to me why there are varying qualities of steak and such price differences. theirsideswere scrumptious the truffle mac and cheese was astounding and the sauce that came with the steaks, accentuated the steak tastes. 

in terms of the other factors, i must admit the location of herne bay couldn’t have been a better choice. in terms of the interior, i felt like this was exactly what a upper end steak house would look and operate. what did bother me about my experience was that the lady who served us was honestly for a lack of a better term a complete b*tch. i wouldn’t normally say this of people who are in the hospitality industry, having worked in it myself(people have off days i get it, but seriously professionalism especially at a place like jervois). 

however the lady who served us just had a rather rude and obnoxious attitude. in terms of specific examples when we first were seated, one of my dining compatriots wanted to get more clarification about the menu and had some other questions, when we did ask the waitress she was unwillingly to answer some of our question and when she did respond, she ignored some of our question and gave us looks like if we were asking seriously dumb question. i felt that as a table we may have been judged based on our appearance/ discriminated against. not a nice feeling.

another one was when we asked if we could have our entrees served with the steak she sighed and gave us a tirade about how thats not how they do things here and that they simply couldn’t change their process. regardless if the process was valid or not it was the attitude in which she delivered her response which came off as rather vicious. in contrast we had another waiter and he was fabulous. he was everything the waitress wasn’t, he was cheerful, bubbly and most of all he gave us the feeling that he wanted us to be dining in at the restaurant. 

apologies for the poor quality of my photos. 

showstopper: quality steaks and the mac & cheese, irresistible.

overall grade: a- would have been 5/5 if there was better service.

love the food, best piece of steak in auckland and thesidesare delicious. love coming here on special occasions. would have liked the manager or the mid aged man on reception who welcomed us and took our payment at the end to be a little more warm and welcoming. other than that it was an awesome experience and i would recommend.

the steaks weren't cooked well, chewy and overpriced. thesidesare basic and seem more pub food to me. this place is overrated and really just an underwhelming experience.

amazing food and great service! the steak was cooked to perfection and thesideswere just right. loved how our waiter went through the different kind of steaks they offer and explained everything. best of all showing us the size of the scotch we’d be expecting. defiantly the best steak house in auckland, we’ll be back soon. highly recommended.

food was flawless. from their steaks to thesidesdown to desserts. really perfect. desperately wanted to give them a solid 5 but the let down was service. our waiter was cold, had a judge-y look on him and bordered on unpleasant. no matter how beautifully cooked a steak is, poor service can leave a bad taste in the mouth. flawless food deserves applause though.