styx and stone

reasonable wheelchair access (good parking, thresholds, and tables, but doors overly heavy and ramp to upper seating area a little too steep). warm. music a bit louder than i prefer, but not conversation-killing levels.

love the stone grill venison. as others have said, the blue cheese sauce here is strong--one of us loved it, the other two found it a bit much (perhaps they should offer a milder option?). the roast potatoes (skin on) were way too heavily salted, but the veges of the day were beautiful. our guest had the 500gm $20steakspecial and made a pretty impressive dent in it too!

waited less than 20 minutes for our meals. ordering dessert did require flagging down a passing waitress, however.  

the hot fudge chocolate sundae was well worth the $12.50, though a bit difficult to eat out of the tall glass it's served in (we asked for a bowl and transferred the contents). this thing came with tempered chocolate squiggles on top, ice cream, chocolate sauce, fudge, brownie... no sign of any whipped cream, but to be honest i didn't miss it. we got extra spoons and shared one dessert between two, which worked out well. i've had better meals during my week in christchurch, but nothing that compared to this dessert!

my husband and i went here for his birthday last week. it was quite a nice atmosphere, the staff were absolutely brilliant, the food was good. for once mysteakwas actually cooked right! seems to be something most restaurants cannot do right. mysteakwas perfectly cooked to rare, not overcooked and well done like most of the places we go. it wasn't mind blowingly good food, but it was consistent. i didn't like that our meals came out separately, and my husband had to wait a bit longer for his meal. all things considered though, we'd definitely return.

always have pasta or rib eyesteakhere. never had any issues with our meal. service is okay a bit slow with serving but nothing major. nice place for lunch or catch up dinner.

so thought i would try our local bar today. ordered an eternal fillet on the stone with roast potatoes and mushrooms. first got vegetables but easily remedied. then the eye fillet. well i have not eaten a piece of eye fillet or anysteakcut to be honest as tough as this in about 5 years. it was actually so tough i almost started eating my shoe. pretty sure it would have been more tender. mushrooms were swimming in butter to the point of 1 was equivalent to a 500g block of butter i think. would i eat here again. absolutely not. for the overpriced tiny tough piece of meat not worth it. but. let's be fair it's not in the mistake it's how it's remedied. so one tiny piece of meat eaten 1 mushroom eaten. everything else left. so they gave me a 50% reduction. pwah. yeah we won't be back

have been overseas for the last 5 weeks and on returning to christchurch and to celebrate a birthday we decided to eat out. having visited this establishment on a number of occasions previously with no problems we decided to have dinner which was for 6 people. we were shown promptly to our seats and ordered drinks and quickly followed up by ordering our food. this is when things started to go downhill rapidly. myself and one of my sons orderedsteakboth medium rare, we then had to requeststeakknives which were unceremoniously dumped on the table. my entire meal was cold, my sons was slightly warmer. on calling back the waiter he apologised and said he would get them sorted out. i then requested a different option from the menu but after he checked with the manager the waiter said this would not be possible and i must stick with my original choice, after a few deliberations with the waiter i declined this offer, he confided that if it was up to him i could have what i wanted but was acting under managers instructions. my daughter in laws pizza was undercooked on the bottom and my wife's caesar salad had bacon that was virtually raw. ten minutes later the waiter arrived back and proclaimed that the manager had decided that i could have another meal of choice (she must by this time have realised she was running a restaurant). we decided to cut our losses and leave with a number of uneaten meals on the table but was not prepared to pay for the meal that was sent back. the waiter then appeared and asked if we needed any deserts or coffee, we normally would have but unfortunately had to decline his offer. on paying for the meals my son was asked to pay the full amount even for the barely touched one which was sent back. the manager was insistent on arguing over this in full view of staff and customers. i intervened and said just pay the full amount and lets go at which point she deducted this meal from the bill. in the past 5 weeks we have eaten in many towns in england, australia and abu dhabi and have never experienced such low quality meals or levels of service as were evident at this restaurant. i fully understand that things can go wrong but they can also be rectified/recovered in an appropriate manner. needless to say the restaurant has now lost at least six customers and i wont be recommending this establishment to others.

wasnt overly impressed got here and ordered the 10steakand was told that it had gone up to 12.50 even tho they stil advertising it for 10 any business advertising a certain price has to stand by it. gave us the wrong drink and forgot my coffee, meal was disgusting mysteakwas like eating old boots, the souvlaki had aphid in it and the mince was horrible,service with a smile doesnt go astray either you would think they would try and rectify the bad situation but no

we had a fabulous meal at your restaurant. great food and attentive, friendly staff. the stonegrill was a great experience. very sociable and fun way to dine. i had the fettucine though and really loved it. thanks for a great night. we will be back!!!


----- 01 sep, 2010 -----

i am not usually asteakeater when i dine out but this concept of a stone grill is amazing. fun, social and thesteakwas tender and i could cook it just how i liked!
lovely decor and friendly staff!

went on sunday night 11/7/11. mother in laws birthday dinner. arrived at 7pm we were booked in for group of 6. looking forward to stonegrill. surly waitress came over and told us stonegrill menu which is over 50% of menu was unavailable as they had run out of stones at lunchtime!!!! staff apologetic but still hugely dissapointing as this is why we had booked there! main meals were atrocious worst i have had. flavourless, small portions, potatoes came out cold! vege's were terrible uncooked cauliflower etc. yuck. extreme lack of flavour. fries were overcooked and dry and skimpy. not only had they run out of stones for stonegrill, one of our party ordered asteakoff the main menu and was told he couldn't have it. also ordered a side of fried egg which was forgotten and brought out later. didn't get dessert as wanted a quick getaway from this dive! only consolation was we were given free coffees at the end of the meal, which was the high point of an awful meal!

having just had lunch there today i would rate it as the worst dining experience ever. we eat out alot both here and overseas and i could not beleive today's lunch exoerience. firstly we waited just over an hour for six stonegrill meals. an hour is excessive given that it was 2pm (that was the only time we could book a table for) and that the meals consisted of a few limp lettuce leaves, some minute warm 'roast' potatoes and a piece of raw meat...no cooking and not even fries. okay-so the stonegrill meals- i had surf n turf 2 small mussells, two small cooked prawns,a scallop white (no roe) and if you put your thumb and forefinger together that was how big the piece ofsteakwas...i took a photo. dh had the tasting sg and basically had what i had only his piece ofsteakwas three times the size and a decent size piece of pork as well. another tasting sg was the same. son had turf which was a piece ofsteakwhich obviously had been sitting for awhile as it had cooked well oon one side.daughter had the chicken sg- 4 cubes of chicken between two skewers and small portion of rice that was so hard that not only was it inedible but you couldn't 'cut' it. i actually felt sorry for the wait staff having to serve it. spoke to the duty manager who knocked our drinks off the bill (big deal as not a huge amount).value for $15 per sg??? i would rather pay $28 and have a real meal. we have all eaten again after leaving the restaurant.horrid horrid horrid experience and i cannot understand why people keep going back.

fantastic meal, great concept.
most tender piece ofsteakiv had.
lots of fun and great atmosphere.
will definitely be back again!