Tongariro Lodge
Reviews · · · ·Rating: 3
We ate dinner here in October 2025.
Bruschetta
Brisket sliders
Beef cheek with polenta
Honeyed roast carrots
Pineapple sticky date pudding with marscapone caramel sauce
Affogato with Frangelico
The lodge continues to produce delicious food, but is yet to return to its former heights (it was once a 4) or lows (it once served one of the worst dishes we’ve ever had).
The bruschetta was serviceable. The stick in the sliders was comically long, nearly triple the size of the burger, but this did at least make it easy to whip the skewer in and out. It came with a perplexing dipping sauce. We chose to dip the burgers in the too-small bowl, but this was not the most practical. It also came with huge pieces of dill pickle on the side. This wasn’t the go - please slice our pickles and put them in the burger thank you very much. And if you were thinking about slicing them lengthways, go back to clown school.
The beef cheek was pretty dark good - very juicy, flavourful jus, dope polenta, and not a small serve either. The honeyed roast carrots were sweet and sticky, but were not uniform in size and consequently not uniform in cook.
Pineapple was a new addition for us in the sticky date realm, and it was served upside-down styles with the pineapple baked into the bottom (top once you turn it out) of the pudding. The texture was slightly too cakey rather than a fluffy sticky pudding, but the flavour including the pineapple and the caramel marscapone was all delicious. The affogato came with a gargantuan glass of Frangelico - it was so much we had to brainstorm how to use it up (half in the affogato, half in the espresso cup). It was delicious ice cream though, and a nice way to end a quality meal.