Review Mills Reef Winery & Restaurant - Tauranga

We had my birthday dinner at Mills Reef winery Restaurant. I am happy to say, it was surprisingly tasty food. Great flavors combinations and obviously all the wines to match each dish you like.

Excellent food. The wine is good - not great. They have a nice restaurant at the winery. I would recommend it. It has a nice space outside to sit, eat and have a drink or two.

They have a GrabOne Menu Degustation running at present and it is an excellent deal. Superb and tasty food, quickly served and very professional wait staff. Ordered a very smooth Elspeth Cab/Merlot, on the waiters recommendation and it didn't disappoint

An amazing place to have lunch. Excellent food. Highly recommended.

We went in for an impromptu lunch and it was amazing. Can't recommend this place enough.

Dropped in to this lovely winery on a whim as we were staying with family nearby. So glad we did. Was the highlight of our trip to NZ. Began with a fantastic wine tasting, served by Drew who was extremely friendly, down to earth and shared his love of wine with us. Followed by a very enjoyable platter for two on the deck overlooking the picturesque lawns. All of the staff were so friendly and unpretentious. Felt so welcome. Cannot wait to go back and try more of their delicious wines!!

Every time I have been there I have had nothing but exceptional service. Yesterday I feel like they have gone above and beyond for great customer service. We had a wine tasting with Drew and he is absolutely amazing. I highly recommend Mills Reef and if you are having a tasting I recommend Drew! Thank you always for making such an enjoyable experience for your customers! 5++ star!

We were impressed once again with the great food with a number of friends ordering the Seafood Chowder which was beautiful and creamy with plenty of seafood. I personally ordered the Coriander Salad with Fish- was cooked perfectly. So good to see a Restaurant in Tauranga making the most of local produce!

Lovely relaxing place to visit. Have really enjoyed my lunchtime experiences here and can recommend the platter which is enough for two people and delicious! The staff are very friendly and very attentive. Always happy to go back.

Came to the Winery for a family members wedding. The venue was absolutely gorgeous even though it was on the edge of winter. We ceremony was held outside on the lawn while the reception was in the function room in the basement. You'd think the basement would not be a place to hold a wedding reception but it was gorgeous! The walls are lined with fake wine barrels to give a cosy ambience and the food was just delicious!

Went on Saturday for chefs platter, and sat outside. beautiful surroundings. laden avocado trees. beautiful grounds. service from staff was outstanding and platter was great. desert was orgasmic. 2013 reserve chard went down a treat. returned the next day and was blown away again with service and food. duck salad. brulee. top food wine surroundings and service. faultless.

I had lunch with 9 X friends on Saturday, it was a busy day in the restaurant . We were worried about meals and service possibly being late because of the business. How wrong were we...what a beautiful experience. The waiters and waitresses were excellent looking after our needs before we even asked and then the meals. Absolutely to die for. Wonderful presentation and flavours , I could not fault it and can't wait to,go back again . By the way, I had the chicken curry, not because I am GF or anything like that, I just felt like a curry. OMG .....to die for, the Rserve Pinot Gris just topped it off.

Great Sunday Brunch outside at Mills Reef on Sunday. Exceptional service, good prices and smooth coffee. Large selection of gluten free meals and very helpful for celiacs. Highly recommended.

Had a fantastic Vegan meal. Really good to see restaurants cater to vegans! Food was great really tasty! It's amazing how you can still have a good meal without meat!

Fabulous Saturday lunch on a very wet day, food was delicious, beautiful wine & staff were so friendly, chatty & warm, very genuine. Kate especially in the tasting room is very knowledgeable, warm & really added to the experience. A huge asset to the lucky locals wherever they will be in the future. Steve Franklin Rotorua

Had a great experience with the folks at Mills Reef. Friendly staff, beautiful, well manicured grounds and I know my bride and groom had a great experience too! Would recommend to anyone wanting to book this venue!

Headed here to try out the advertised wine tastings and can happily recomend the experience to anyone. Spend around 30mins here tasting half a dozen of mills reef wines. The host was friendly and engaging happy to explain the wine making process. No real pressure on purchasing wines which is nice, tho we did end up picking up a few bottles. Would be nice if an actual tour was on offrr with a wine tasting at the end. Didnt end up eating here but menu sounded pretty tasty and out door area looked amazing.

Fabulous staff who value customers and are knowledge, professional and friendly. Great to see their enthusiasm for their product. This is a winery that punches above its weight, and offers wine tasting and eating options. Lovely!

On our final day in Tauranga my family and I decided to visit the winery to have a drink and relax. The environment is lovely and the view of the courtyard whilst eating also enhanced the experience. We sat outside and ordered 2 children platters for the kids and our drinks. We enjoyed our experience and would have wanted to stay and have dinner although we couldn't as we had to drive back to Auckland.

Very disappointing with our lunch, $45 for a seafood platter which had more lettuce than fish and they replaced the crispy skin fish with tuna , too bad I don't like tuna, they should have asked.,very average what was there. Lovely girl serving tho.

Outstanding location with a great menu and good wine list. I had the seafood chowder which was excellent, nice and creamy and full of seafood and flavour. We were there for a mid-week lunch so it wasn't very busy and didn't have much of a vibe, but I'm on the weekends and summer it would be pumping.  Menu has plenty of gluten free, diary free, vegetarian etc options, all clearly marked.

We visited this Winery with our friend from the US on a Sunday Afternoon and enjoyed the wine tasting and then decided to have a bite to eat. We were seated on the veranda and enjoyed the tranquility. We asked for nibbles and a few platters and the staff were only too pleased to help and made suggestions to suit our needs. All in all this was an exceptional experience with great food, excellent service and Superb Wine.

We got married at Mills Reef 10 years ago, and had the best experience and the most amazing food.<br/>Ever since then, every time we return to Tauranga we try to make a trip out to Mills Reef for lunch. Every time we do, we have a great meal. <br/><br/>The food is always delicious, with bold, layered flavours using Pacific fusion ingredients, well presented, in decent size, at a very reasonable price. If Mills Reef was in Auckland, we'd visit every month.

Went there at the end of summer. Pity that it was windy. However our waiter was a real pro. The beef salad I ordered had my mouth rocking with flavour explosions. I am looking forward to going back in the summer. Highly recommend this place

My sister arrived from Australia to stay for a few days. I decided to take her out to Mills Reef to show her where my daughter will marry. We arrived unannounced and the staff could not have made us more welcome, Nothing was a problem, and they left us in the cellar to take it all in, with the pillars lights on. It was just magical. We decided to stay for lunch and had a great experience. My brother arrived the following day so we took him out there for lunch also. We were invited to do some wine testing as well as having another faultless lunch. Although we have lived at the mount for fourteen years and have been to two weddings there we haven't bothered before now. We will definitely be going back

We recently had our wedding at Mills Reef Winery and the food was exquisite. Attila is an incredibly talented chef. We received many outstanding comments on the night with people saying they had never attended a wedding with such high quality food. The prawn and chicken entrees were delicious, the steak and pork mains were mouth watering and how the wedding cake came out with cream and berries was exceptional. I was so happy and highly recommend Mills Reef to dine at. A culinary sensation.

It was my girlfriend's birthday on Monday so we decided to treat ourselves to a fancy lunch and had heard that Mills Reef was nice. When I called to book the girl on the other end of the phone was friendly and helpful and said they had just changed their menu and it was amazing. Little did I know that she was not exaggerating. My friend has a one year old daughter and the waitress was very accommodating when upon arrival we asked to sit at a different table than the one she had reserved for us so that her daughter could run around on the grass nearby. She brought over a high chair and took our order immediately when she knew we were pushed for time. My meal was absolutely DIVINE. I had the duck and it was cooked to perfection with crispy skin and moist meat with the most delectable accompaniments on the plate. My glass of sparkling rosé was delicious also. If we had time to stay for dessert I think I would have died and gone to heaven! I can't wait to return again!

Have never dined at Mills Reef before and I have lived in Tauranga for 10 years. I was invited there for my friend's special birthday which happened to be a rainy Tuesday lunchtime with a group of 40ish, shall I say not boring, women. The waitress was not very inspiring, I said 'Thank you' to her more times than she remembered her manners &amp; service, the food was dried up &amp; boring just like the restaurant &amp; the lack of zest with the staff &amp; the food. Very disappointed, thank goodness I had great company. Sorry to say the restaurant does not reflect the beautiful environment that surrounds it. I hope the service &amp; the food will get better in the future.

This was the third time we had travelled over to Mills Reef for lunch in the past week. The first time, Anzac Day, they were closed for lunch. The second time, Friday, there was a conference being held in the restaurant and therefore they were not serving lunch to the public. They do have a website and surely this could have been mentioned on there. <br/><br/>In the past we have had some wonderful meals at Mills Reef with exceptional service but this definitely wasn't the case today. Our fish was overcooked and the chips appeared to be mass produced. The only things worth mentioning were the coffee and hot chocolate which were great.<br/><br/>For a restaurant that I have always considered to be up there with the best in Tauranga, they have a long way to go in my opinion, to get back to where they were !!

Really disappointed.. the food for a place like this should be of a high standard.. some of our group ordered meals. the rest ordered platters to share.. The fresh oysters were dripping their juices all over the fresh bread and cured meat.. everything appear to come out of a jar and the Duck Liver Pate was rotten.. On complaining the service man argued with us... We did however leave buying a case of wine.....!!!!!!

We dined for a Sunday lunch to celebrate my mother in law's 60th birthday.<br/><br/>We arrived and were seated promptly and were told she'd be right back with water. 20 mins later we were still sitting with our menus, no water, and no-one had been to take our drinks order. My husband had to approach the front desk to ask for an order to be taken.<br/><br/>Our order taker arrived and didn't know what the fish of the day was. Needless to say we didn't order it!<br/><br/>The food was slow to arrive - we wished we had ordered some breads as we were building quite an appetite. When the food did arrive it was absolutely delicious and well presented. My husbands duck fell off the bone and my vegetarian mother-in-law was impressed with her vegetarian main. The wine was well priced and good also.<br/><br/>We had planned to order desserts and another bottle of wine, however after sitting with our empty dirty plates and empty wine glasses for quite a while we decided we'd be better off going to a cafe in Tauranga where service would be prompt.<br/><br/>Hopefully we just hit a bad day. I have to say one of the waitresses attending nearby tables seemed to be constantly doing the rounds while ours was noticeably absent. We weren't the only table in our area waiting.<br/><br/>The food is great, the outlook beautiful. Great service would have made this a 5 star experience.

Fantastic location! waitresses were very friendly and helpfull and ensured we were well looked after. food was delicious and very reasonably priced. great wine also, matched the menu well.

Absolutely fantastic lunch, service brilliant waitress very friendly nothing too much trouble - The wine paddle was a great idea and good value <br/>the next visit will be for dinner and another wine tasting

Yesterday being Mothers day was huge for Mills Reef, we had a little mis understanding in ordering a small bottle of very expensive wine, no problem they fixed it.<br/>The meals were superb and service great considering the number of customers, was a great mothers day lunch.