maranui cafe

frequent here often. just good tucker with abusyhustle bustle atmosphere, with the views to compliment.

all meals from brunch to lunch a brill.

a typical wellington cafe you must visit. considering howbusyit is, the staff do well to keep it all cool & calm.

obviously on wknds be prepared for the wait at the door before you can get your table, but once in you forget about the wait and come back to do the same thing next time.

father’s day lunch at alert level 2 so wasn’t surprised that there was a wait to get in. busyvibe in a wet day. had a nice eggs bene and wished i had got the snickers shake which others had. made sure to grab a slice of ginger pear cake to take home. so delicious!

great selection of food and super quick efficient service. got to get there early as it gets verybusyand you can’t book

went a while ago and thought i had reviewed this place. went on a weekday breakfast. it wasbusybut well worth the wait. cabinet food looked great too.

what a shame as it has great potential and a cool fit out with view over the bay but let down by the time it took to get our food. verybusybut it took 45 minutes for breakfast to be served. it wasn’t just us i was looking at the kitchen and there was a period of 15 minutes in where no good came out. eggs benedict was good, eggs cooked well but served on boring toast and hollondaise just average. no waters topped up from the waiters either... plenty better places to go to

decided to stop here for lunch with my family while in wellington. my mum (a wellingtonian) said the maranui cafe was legendary so we were very excited! she wasn't wrong! we arrived and it was extremelybusywith a 40 min wait time for food. the service was impeccable, the decor was quirky and cool and the menu was great! i ordered the toasted sandwich which was loaded with a side of relish, and at our table we also got quesadillas, muesli and fries and aioli. holy moly was every aspect of the food delicious. the whole family were impressed with our meals. to make a simple toastie into something quite gourmet was great. only tiny issue is it is a bit cramped andbusy- but then again, that's a sign it's a very loved cafe. will definitely come again when i'm back in welly!

love their food. i've had eggs benedict a few times which were good. also had a few of their milkshakes in the past and they are well worth the price. i love their hash browns. service is really good. they can get quitebusyand therefore the place can get a little noisy. i highly recommend the place though.

verybusyplace and nice view. coffee is good and food is ok. there will be long wait when you go on weekend. seating can be better but staff is quite attentive. cafe is upstairs but toilet is downstairs. the stair to upstairs is a bit narrow. well you can not beat the view hence many people go there. food can be a bit expensive in my opinion. however if you visit there when weather is nice you feel like you are in cuba or one of south american countries.

came here for brunch a couple of weeks ago. staff were welcoming and friendly despite howbusythey were.
we got there around 12noon and clearly got in at the start of the rush, only needed to wait 5mins for a table but by the time we'd finished there was a queue out the door! best to get in early...
the food and coffee were both good, i had the pancakes which were brilliant but my partner had the mushrooms on toast which was very rich and a bit too much of just the one flavour. i'd still go back to try the rest of the menu though, one of those places where you need an extra 10mins to figure out what to choose!

have been here a few times for a coffee and a savoury muffin which is delicious! service is quick and has a nice view. coffee is good and strong and they good range of allergy friendly food which is impressive. the only downside is that it can get reallybusyand due to the small stairwell access is tough for some (have had to wait in the stairwell)... did wait though! haha

it pretty much always seems to bebusyhere which means getting a seat can be very hard. it also means that service may take awhile, which we were warned about before we sat down. the busyness of the cafe meant that at times it was hard to hear each other especially as we were st in the middle of the cage.
i ordered a bagel with extra avocado. it was really good and just what i wanted. my friend didn't quite get the meal she ordered but was still happy with what she got. overall it was good and the view great.

recommended, for less thanbusytimes.

grudgingly i was badgered into going to maranui on the weekend. i say this in all honesty because i dislike restaurants that are too popular, packed with punters, everyone being made more excited and talkative by being packed alongside too many others.

it's like going to one of those dreadful top twins shows where the fear of being dragged up front makes everyone laugh uproariously in the presence of zero actual humour. in the same way, the wait at maranui, the crowded intrusion on personal space and the loud cacophony of chatter makes everyone more excited than is actually warranted.

certainly the belief that you will be sipping and eating quietly while looking dreamily over the rolling green grey ocean is unlikely to be realised.

anyway i did go, and grudgingly i was pleased i did. for a start off there was no queue on the stairs - that surprised me considering that outside hundreds of little kids were being taught the elements of paddle boarding while devoted parents looked on in the wind and wished little johnny or julie had wanted to do cricket instead.

anyway the kids weren't in the cafe and that meant the parents weren't in the cafe and that was a plus - and the queue at the desk was only two. contrary to my expectation, a few minutes later we took what must be the best seats in the house - smack bang centre window seats looking over the ocean, onto the kids paddling, and parents looking on.

ambience, apart from packed and noisy is retro, multicoloured eclectic, beachy, surf clubby, with nautical overtones, stags at bay and the odd poster relating to pugilists (i have no idea sorry).

three of us for coffee - trim cap, flat whites and a date scone. coffee excellent, well made, good texture and flavour, and the scone was dense, moist with rich datey sweetness. like the scone, my previous experience of maranui's food is that it is essentially unfussy, substantial and good quality.

if it weren't for its popularity maranui would be more popular.

this cafe
has a fantastic view and is alwaysbusyas you would expect from the location.
however the view is only the thing really worth coming for. the food is really
average and the service is a little below par. we had a muffin and a scone the
other day, the muffin was very weird and had way too many things going on and
the scone has an artificial orange taste which was disappointing.  it's so
busy it feels like you are being forced out for them to seat the next person, definitely
not a relaxing cafe experience.

first time i came here it was sobusyi turned back around and went to another establishment, today my theory was the weather is absolute rubbish, cold windy and rainy that surely it won't be busy, boy i was wrong, still a queue out the door! so then came my other theory, if they arebusyon a day like this, then there must be something special going on here. waited for a table for about 10mins and ordered while we stood in line to save a bit of time. told in advance how long the food was going to take. servings are much bigger than expected and had to take home a doggy bag. i even got of my butt and got my own water and lived to write this review!

maranui is one of the few cafes in lyall bay so when we wandered in at around 1pm on a saturday, the massive line was no surprise.

the cafe is quite small but has an amazing view of the beach, i can imagine it being even busier in summer! we were told the wait for food would be about 40 mins, so we order a vege sandwich from the cabinet and some fries on the side (which were massive, so great value).

however, it was the service which was below par. i found the staff to be kind of rude! when asked if we wanted drinks we just asked if we could have water, to which we were bluntly told to go get ourselves...i understand it wasbusybut if it makes the customer happy, just go and get it. then when we were eating our food another waitress came over and again bluntly asked if we were done and could take our menus, which we had to pass over mid-mouthful. she could've been a lot more polite about this and made all of us feel uncomfortable!

i would return on a quieter day as the menu did look really nice, hopefully the staff are more friendly next time round.