Booked Rātā for our last dinner in Queenstown and it didn't disappoint. They serve excellent quality food, with delicious flavour combinations, that would not be out of place in a major capital city. The staff were friendly and knowledgeable, but it did become a little hard to get their attention once the place filled up with diners.
We had the Speights sourdough with Marmite butter as a starter and the butter looked like Nutella, but it was very tasty and not overpowering in flavour.
We followed that by sharing the Remarkable Fungi brown butter roasted cauliflower and Lake Ōhau wagyu eye fillet with a side of roasted brussel sprouts. Steak was cooked to perfection (medium) and the accompanying jus had a nice intensity to it. Wrapped up with the Alexandra walnut dessert (small but tasty). All washed down with sparkling water and a couple of glasses of Laurent-Perrier champagne. Magnifique!

Not the easiest place to find but worth it once you do. The ambience, food and service were first class. We also loved the rainforest wall which made looked real enough to walk into.

Wine we ordered wasn’t the year on wine menu - were told “oh that is a mistake on menu it shouldn’t be 2022!”. (We were served 2023!). Duck leg entree was incredibly tough and when waiter asked how was our entree’s we told him and he proceeded to say that it had been cooked for 12 hours!! - not the one we tried to eat iam afraid!. And the lamb was ordered by two of us at table which arrived looking amazing but sadly when we tried to cut it with our knives we couldn’t! Obviously chewing it was also a chewy mission and hence left most of the uneatable lamb which was apparently from Royalburn - Nadia’s farm on the plate. It was uneatable mainly - very very tough and chewy. So disappointed as the evening was a finale to our south otago holiday and a treat for our parents.

We had a wonderful dining experience at Rata. This is a place that you would go to celebrate a special occasion. The venue was tastefully decorated and had a great ambience. The wait staff were exceptional in terms of customer service, balancing a friendly, professional demeanour, an in-depth knowledge of the menu, attentiveness while being non-intrusive and ensuring that we were well looked after for the evening and not left wanting.

We chose the degustation tasting menu and experienced a variety of differnt flavours with each dish being wonderfully fresh, flavoursome and showcasing the best of New Zealand's local produce.

We started proceedings with Speight'ssourdough with marmite butter and fried yeast. The sourdough was wonderfully fresh, warm and the marmite butter had a lovely flavour that wasn't too overpowring so we could be quite generous with the portion that we spread on the bread.

Next we were served the Marlborough oyster with passionfruit and Lot8 extra virgin oil, the Fry aged Lake Ohau beef fillet tartare sandwich, poached egg yolk and miso, and the crayfish croustade, salted citrus and pickled granny smith. The oyster was huge, fresh and the saltiness of the oyster was nicely offset by the sweet, tartness of the passionfruit. The beef fillet tartare sandwich was just bursting with so much flavour that it was hard to believe that there were so many flavours from such a bitesize morsel. But the winner was the crayfish croustade. The freshness and sweetness of the crayfish flesh really came through and the subtleness of the citrus and granny smith allowed the freshness to shine. I could eat this all day.

Next up was the Ruakiki kingfish crudo, pickled nashi pear, chive and dashi. This was a really refreshing dish and the freshness of the kingfish and accompanying ingredients blended nicely.

Similar story for the Big Glory Bay Salmon and roe with brussel sprout and yuzu foam. Another combination of flavours and freshness that was pleasing for the taste buds.

On to the Lake Ohau Wagyu eye fillet, honey carrot, truffled celeriac and octail jus. Just wow! The tenderness of the wagyu that was cooked to perfection was just melt-in-the-mouthand the honey carrot and truffled celeriac was a lovely blend of differnt flavours.

On to desserts and first was the "Be the Change" honey praline, feijoa, NZ macadamia and hibiscus. This was a stunner of a dessert and the flavours were quite intense.

Finally, we were served the Alexandra walnut, coffee, Bailey's and bitter chocolate. In it's own right this dish was nice. However, the intense wow flavour of the previous dessert sort of downplayed this one. In my opinion, this dessert should have been served prior to the "Be the Change" dessert.

Overall, it was a wonderful journey for our tastebuds and Rata was quite the experience. Definitely worth trying if you are in Queenstown. Just make sure that you book as the restaurant was packed when we were there.

Our go-to restaurant in QT. But a little off its game tonight. The new menu tries just too hard, like an over-talkative acquaintance. What tomfoolery is this, pairing pork with clams? The madness of the match is reflected by the fact the clam (singular) is served separately. The pork itself was average, too, though the lamb was excellent. We’ll return. We always do. But without quite the anticipation of old.