Penthouse Cinema and Cafe

Rating: 1

We ate lunch here in June 2026.

Mince & cheese pie
Fish & chips
Caramel slice

On a wintery Sunday at lunchtime, Penthouse Cinema & Cafe was absolutely heaving. The cinema tickets and cafe queue is shared and the line was almost out the door. Thanks to the recent release of Toy Story 5 and the latest Minions movie, there were kids everywhere, plus tonnes of senior citizens. The staff were rushed off their feet, but were still friendly and were clearly trying their best amidst difficult circumstances.

Given how busy it was, we thought we might be in for a treat. When the pie was $10, we accepted the price as an indicator of quality. How wrong we were. The pie did appear to be homemade and had good pastry, but what was up with that mince? You remember when you were flatting and you made that stir fry and it was just mince, onion and mixed veg, everybody hated it and you’d made a metric tonne of it? These pie innards were that, but without the veg. Where was the gravy? Where was the cheese? The salt? The pepper? And where was the heat? This thing was tepid at best. When we realised we’d paid $10 for it, we couldn’t help but laugh. And this was not an isolated incident - the man at the table next to us very angrily took his pie up to be reheated, then later, when his reheated pie finally showed up he got up again and told them that he just wanted a refund. This issue is systemic, people.

The fish and chips were better, but it’s hard to be worse. When the fish showed up looking very angular we were worried it was going to be a gross composite hoki fillet. To their credit, it was real fish fillet. To their debit, what was with the crumb? It was so crisp, when you tried to cut into it the shell immediately shattered and completely parted ways with the fish, which also disintegrated. This left you desperately picking little bits up from among the chips, we felt like anteaters trying to get little ants from a rotten log. The salad wasn’t great, why was there cabbage in it? We did at least enjoy the shoestring fries, and both the fries and the fish were hot out of the deep fryer.

The best part was the caramel slice. The portion was generous, the caramel thick, and the edge was extra sticky and delicious, a boon considering often the edge of a slice is often the worst bit.

Bringing us back down to earth; the espresso martinis. Firstly, they didn’t arrive until we were eating our food, which was already a long wait. They had a bitterness which was unpleasant - was the coffee burnt? Perhaps it was the ratios, something to do with the kahlua? Either way, they were bad. They weren’t quite Tirohana Estate bad, but still pretty bad.