Cellar-vate

Rating: 1

We ate lunch here in September 2026.

Cheese, onion and ham toasted sandwich
Mince and cheese pie
Lemon slice

At 11.30 on a Wednesday, in central Wellington, at an eatery self-described as “kitchen & espresso” we found ourselves wondering – where is the food? There was no menu apparent at the counter. We later found a menu on our table, but that’s irrelevant as we were in a mysterious dead zone between breakfast (served til 11) and lunch (served from 12). There was a cabinet, but it had very little inside. Half of the cabinet was hot and it contained one pie. Not one kind of pie. Literally a single pie. On the cold side for savoury options there were two types of toasted sandwich, one not-toasted sandwich, and one wrap. We’ll emphasise again, this was 11.30, before lunch had even started. Very strange. So the kitchen was a little MIA, the espresso at least was front and centre, but as you’ll read later, this turned out not to be a good thing.

We’ve all heard it said that a great restaurant does a few things well, rather than trying to do everything poorly. Cellar-vate has, very unfortunately, chosen to be a bad restaurant and does everything poorly. The pie contained weird liquid cheese and ever-unwelcome peas. The toasted sandwich was serviceable, but again had an unusual cheese choice – it was bright yellow and vaguely smoky. But these were triumphs compared with the other two items we ordered.

The lemon slice was straight up gross. The flavour was lemony with a sugar undercurrent and also tasted of something you couldn’t put your finger on but weren’t enjoying – almond perhaps? But the real problem was the texture, which was claggy and prone to sticking to the roof of your mouth. If you thought that was bad, wait til you try the coffee. Bearing in mind that this place proudly describes its status as an espresso specialist, and from customer observation coffee is their #1 seller, you’d think it would at least be passable. Nope. Burnt. Burnt to absolute cinders, the cinders tamped down and run through the espresso machine to burn them some more.

And one final thing, what is up with your name? “Salivate” is a genuinely awful name for an eatery on multiple levels. And then you’ve jammed the word “cellar” in there like you’re selling booze that you definitely don’t have. Just change it. Please.