The restaurant is named after Cecil Peak and Walter Peak, the two mountains on the far side of the bay. Sixty-eight seats, eleven of them at the window, and a terrace with another twenty-four when the weather allows.
Breakfast is a buffet with a hot section cooked to order and runs from 6.30am to 10am, 7am at weekends. It is included in every room rate. Visitors from outside the hotel pay NZ$38.
Dinner is five courses at NZ$118 a head, or three at NZ$86. The menu is rewritten every Tuesday around what has come in: stone fruit and vegetables from Cromwell and Roxburgh, lamb from the Maniototo, blue cod and groper from Bluff, and cheese from Whitestone in Oamaru.
Tables are held for hotel guests until 8pm and bookable by anyone. Dietary requirements go to the kitchen when you book, not when you sit down. The kitchen cooks around gluten, dairy and shellfish daily and will write a separate menu for a table with four or more restrictions given a day’s notice.
| Breakfast | 6.30am–10am | Buffet with a hot section to order. Included for guests, NZ$38 for visitors. From 7am on Saturday and Sunday. |
|---|---|---|
| Lunch | noon–2.30pm | A short card in The Boatshed Bar: six plates, two of them hot, and a soup that changes daily. NZ$24 to NZ$38. |
| Dinner | 5.30pm–9.30pm | Five courses NZ$118, three courses NZ$86. Wine matched to five courses NZ$74. |
| Room service | 6.30am–10.30pm | A shorter card, delivered to the room. NZ$8 tray charge. |
| Private dining | up to 16 | The room behind the restaurant seats sixteen at one table. Minimum spend NZ$1,400 on a Friday or Saturday. |
The bar is the smaller room off the lobby, with a counter of Central Otago schist and eight stools along it. Thirty-eight wines by the bottle and fourteen by the glass, nearly all of them from Gibbston, Bannockburn and Bendigo, which are twenty-five to fifty minutes east of here.
Beyond the wine: four New Zealand beers on tap, a whisky list of nineteen, and a bar snack menu until 11pm for guests coming off a late flight or a late mountain.
The wine list is written twice a year. About four fifths of it comes from within an hour of the hotel, which is unusual for a hotel list and easy here because the vineyards are that close. The rest is Marlborough, Hawke’s Bay and eight European bottles kept for guests who want something from home.
The bar takes the overflow when the restaurant is full and runs its own short card at lunch. It is open to everyone and has no age restriction beyond the licensing law that applies to any bar in New Zealand.
Where the food comes from
- Stone fruit and vegetables: Cromwell and Roxburgh, 55 minutes
- Lamb and beef: the Maniototo, through a butcher in Cromwell
- Blue cod, groper and oysters: Bluff, twice a week by road
- Cheese: Whitestone, Oamaru
- Bread: baked here from 4am, seven days
Booking a table
- Phone the front desk, +64 3 409 0612
- Or send the enquiry form
- Tables held for hotel guests until 8pm
- Groups of ten or more take a set menu chosen two days ahead
- Children eat from a short menu at NZ$22, any age