The Shed Te Motu Reviews

Outstanding wine, outstanding location... On a bit of a Tiki tour with family I was visiting and decided to stop at The Shed. Bottle of a really lovely rose, later…Place was buzzing, wine was flowing and some great looking food wafting out of the open kitchen. Super smart and friendly floor crew...Booking - to eat - made for when I’m next on Waiheke in December. Can’t wait!

Winters lunch Went there for lunch on a Monday. Wonderful staff , beautiful fresh food. They have their own vegetable garden so it’s farm to table. A place not to miss.

A piece of Heaven in Waiheke Amazing food and wine! The Staff were always smiling and very attentive. Love the atmosphere. This is the best Mothers day present ever!

Ahhhmazing Absolutely loved the food, delicious 😋 especially for those eating with carnivores but wanting veg. Everyone loved the veg. I could eat hear every night and Jess our waiter was awesome. We went with a couple of foodies who also loved it. Best meal on the motu.

Possibly the best meal we have had in a long time in the best environment. Great staff too! We visited here today and had the chefs choice. Amazing raw tuna. Chef here is brilliant and does International food with a slight Korean twist. Best food we have had in a long time and the staff could not have been nicer!

Not good We were so dissapointed! From the babbling waitress to the bland, and some over spiced dishes.Beetroot dish tasted like tinned stuff. Cut up tomato swimming in oil and melted feta. Two hard slices of gluten free bread, uneatable.The wine was nice, spoilt by a charge of $36 for two uninspiring single gins.Wont be back there, and over rated!

Disappointing Was looking forward to lunch after reading reviews but was very disappointed. Very limited menu, less than exciting food and poor presentation. Underwhelmed.

A Real Treat Amazing menu, gorgeous outlook from the restaurant and knowledgeable staff. I recommend trying the Raw Fish in Soy Cream & Kaffir Lime Oil. Palate poppingly good!

Amazing service! Celebrated our anniversary here at The Shed. We had the most amazing experience. Started with wine tasting to sample what the vineyard can offer. Enneke provided the most amazing service, with her vast knowledge of the wine from Te Motu. From wine tasting to dinner service, it was a very memorable experience! Also, shout out to Brianne too for being an awesome maître D. Highly recommended-definitely would go there again!

Fantastic place with amazing service Firstly, our server Jess was amazing. She went to such great effort to explain the whole style and concept of the menu and their chef and also where they source and grow their ingredients. She gave us great personal recommendations for dishes which were perfect and we were well looked after the whole time. She is a star! The setting it beautiful and the food is really well thought out. Order a little extra as the portion aren’t big but they are so delicious and worth it. The wines are really nice and complement the dishes well. This place was really relaxed and peaceful which is just what we wanted. Also they have a super cute dog so what more could you want?

Inspired food, great staff Our table of 9 adults plus a young person and baby had the most enjoyable lunch for my sisters birthday. Jess, our waitperson/host looked after us so well and advised us on the menu. All of the food, and we had pretty much a bit of everything, was tasty and interesting. Our young person was made a delicious pasta dish which she scoffed! Totally recommend this venue, we had a lovely day.

Customer beware! We visited the restaurant after a recommendation. I had called ahead and asked for a nice table in the nice inside dining area and they said they could accommodate they completely ignored this request - although upon arrival making a big fuss of us waiting for our special table (it was the least special table in the restaurant? And they seated us late). Another reason I called ahead it was my partners birthday and although they made a fuss of other customers and their birthday they completely ignored us? Really bizarre.The food took 3 hours to be served and they missed out items on our menu, it was served up and not explained so we didn't know who or what dish we were having, really really poor service and we paid $900 for the privilege of 4 of us to be really treated like second class citizens. This is a restaurant that focuses on catering to large parties, and the masses if your a smaller group watch out -they will disregard you! The only good thing, the staff were really pleasant despite being understaffed and pushed to the max.

Didn’t live up to expectations We’ve been to The Shed before and had absolutely loved it, but unfortunately this time it didn’t live up to our expectations. The service is still excellent & the lamb skewers were a highlight, but overall we found the food expensive and servings small. We ordered the Nose to Tail, which on the day we went was dry aged Pork scotch, which was served with chimichurri. For $35 we got 200g of meat, so the 3 of us literally got only 2 small bites of the pork each. The pork was nice, but definitely not mind blowing, which is what you’d expect for that price!

Great food, great service, great wines and great location Our recent trip to The Shed at Te Motu again lived up to the reputation we expect from this wonderful little gem on Waiheke Island. The food is very interesting, probably the most interesting on the island, and the service is really fantastic. Very knowledgeable people who know their food and wine. It’s also a lovely location with a newly refurbished outdoor area that would be great for families during the day, but it is also a lovely couples venue at night. Highly recommend this as a place to visit on Waiheke.

One the very best on the Island.... .....and that's a huge call when we are so spoilt with an array of such outstanding wineries and restaurants on Waiheke. I've tried to find out the name of the chef at The Shed to share, but to no avail. However his creations are the most successfully innovative I have recently enjoyed amongst all the wonderful offerings from places such as 372 (another favourite), Casita Miro, Ki Maha and Poderi Crisci to name a few.We opted to choose our own dishes which I would recommend because there are some very special ones on the menu and I think some of the descriptions don't necessarily do them justice; so please take advantage of the expertise provided by the wonderful wait staff. Favourites were the Te Matuku oysters with rose granita, the roti (not on the online menu so I can't fully describe), the raw kingfish in the most heavenly sauce, the lamb skewers (so flavourful) and the absolute highlight - the dry aged fish which was sensational and certainly surpassed the impression created by the menu. The wine list is comprehensive and you would be hard-pressed to find something that didn't appeal. The setting is beautiful, rustic and very Waiheke as opposed to some of the more Auckland-style eateries on the island. I give it 10/10.

Great winery restaurant Had lunch here, opting for the chef choice and matching wines, well priced at $120 each. Nice selection with a range of local produce - too much of the pickled vegetables, perhaps! Staff were highly attentive and genuinely interested. The two serving us also worked the vineyard itself, so had great knowledge. Like many Waiheke wineries, the reds were expensive for what they were. The 2012 Te Motu at an additional $40 a glass just isn’t great value. Great location, and would certainly recommend.

Lovely Wines & Good Service We had a very good experience at this winery. The staff were very friendly & helpful. We started with the pickles followed by Chicken Skewers in Salsa Verde & Veg of the day, which was a selection of Heirloom Tomatoes with delicately seasoned Labneh. Last dish was a Korean Beef in a Tostada with purple sauerkraut. Finished off by sharing the cheese & finally a rather delicious deconstructed Snickers type flavoured dessert.We tried a glass of Rosé & Syrah with our food & a Tawny Port with the cheese. All was extremely good!

Not the Te Motu We Remember We had been to Te Motu several times over the years and always rated the food highly. The new covered area is a great addition and the wine continues to be good however unfortunately most of the the food was uninspiring. The menu seems a bit confused and portions are tiny and overpriced for what you get. Two of us ordered the German sausage special. What we got were 3 tiny, skinny, dry, overcooked sausages - nothing like the traditional succulent German sausage I have had in Frankfurt or Cologne. The one redeeming course was the cheeseboard. The goats cheese, blue cheese and seeded crackers were superb and went beautifully with the Te Motu 2012. Happy to return for the wine and cheese however the rest of the menu and the the standard of cooking would need to improve drastically before we would go back for lunch. The wine and cheese lifted this review from Poor to Average.

Don’t Bother! Belated review now that we are back on Waiheke:We went to Te Motu about 1.5 years ago and we rated it as one of the best meals & dining experiences we had had in NZ. For that reason we (the same 4 of us) returned after the first lockdown for a family birthday in May. The waitresses were dressed very badly (very short frayed skirt & sloppy jumper), the service was slow an unprofessional even though the restaurant was almost empty, the meal was ludicrously expensive and so small we had to order baskets of extra bread. How can a restaurant that we once rated as superb go downhill so badly?

Excellent! The Shed at Te Motu has been a firm favourite of ours for a long time and tonight was no different. Our silver wedding anniversary a great reason to celebrate and once again a memorable meal. A new chef onboard keeping up their tradition of delivering stunning food and a lovely team as always happy to chat and provide excellent service.The aged mackrel was an absoulte standout, accompanied by delicious arancini and roasted carrots along with several other side dishes - all divine.Thanks so much to the team at The Shed for delivering deliciousness once again!