Queen Victoria resides over the restaurant like a great patroness. The place was a smallish stone building with wooden structures above, and a real fireplace that warmed us up. Even though we got here early for dinner, around 5pm, we still had to wait for a table to free up. Since we didn't want to sit outside in the cold...

Luckily, one of the diners invited us to share the table with him. He was a Brazilian tourist of mid 20s, a drummer of a quite a well known band in his country, NX Zero. It was his first holiday in ten years that he'd been in the band, and enjoying the South Island's rugged nature. We shared his bottle of red wine. Thanks, D!

Cus rates the meal here as her best meal during her time in NZ. It was that good. We had their house pizza, a vegetarian pizza (as we always do), and a half portion pasta. It was a big half portion though. It filled us up nicely, and we were very content. The weather hadn't improved while we were nesting inside, unfortunately. It was time to find another refuge, and I knew just the place to go... ;) Stay tuned!