Jimmy Cook's Kiwi Kitchen

Rating: 2

We ate dinner here in June 2021.

Chicken burger and chips
Grilled vegetable and haloumi stack

Jimmy Cook’s has fallen into the classic hotel restaurant trap of thinking that if you put truffle oil in a couple of things and charge like a wounded bull, then you’re automatically a fancy joint. In reality, the decor was dated, the furniture cheap, the service clumsy, and the food decidedly meh. Our waiter was personable and friendly, our orders were taken promptly, and food came out fast. However, they also forgot to bring us a wine list, and when we asked our waiter what vegetables came in the stack he was clearly guessing, and only got one guess out of three right. Two if you count haloumi as a vegetable. Speaking of the vegetable stack, this was a horrendous rip off. The meal was tiny, which wasn’t a problem in and of itself, and we were warned that it was a small meal, but $25 for a sad and minuscule grilled veggie salad featuring some haloumi is outrageous. This was in no way a stack, the highest point was about 3cm off the plate, it looked like it had fallen over. It did taste okay at least. In contrast, the burger was huge, yet inexplicably was listed alongside the haloumi “stack” as a small meal. It was notably missing the beer battered onion rings that were mentioned in the menu, however we’re not really that upset that they didn’t show up as the table next door had what was clearly crumbed onion rings with their chicken burger. The type that comes with no guarantee of actual onion on the inside. They had also done a sneaky switcheroo on the advertised tomato sauce which was very obviously BBQ sauce. The burger itself was merely okay, the ingredients were cheap and not particularly well prepared.

A note on reservations. When we first tried to eat at Jimmy Cook’s we were turned away as they were fully booked. This would normally mean we advise booking, however trying to book dinner at Jimmy Cook’s involved so much waiting on the phone and so many transfers that we can hardly recommend it. Just show up and try your luck, and if they are full, then that’s probably for the best anyway.