Mudbrick Vineyard & Restaurant

... and that's heaven. Magic view, restful and just a little bit fancy. I always end up spending more than I should/intend to, but I don't seem to mind.

I fell in love with this place! I popped in just for a wine tasting and ended up staying for hours. The food was just amazing. Beautiful gardens and view over the sea. Well worth a visit!

Ooooh, mixed feelings about this one.  I’ve been there a few times now, once as a romantic getaway, once with work and another time for a wedding.  Each time the food has been amazing, with awesome presentation and mouth watering flavours. Not a restaurant to frequent if you’re feeling a little skint that month, not least so because you have to travel to Waiheke to get there.  The prices are definitely on the high side, but it really is amazing service. Unfortunately, however, the last time I went there my partner got horribly, horribly ill.  We think it was the seafood cracker bite things, which were both delicious, and served at room temperature.  Anyway, it kind of left a lasting impression which soured the experience somewhat.

The food, general atmosphere and views at Mudbrick are all stunning. I am slightly bias as I got married here in 2008 - but we did a lot of reconnaissance beforehand so it is well tried and tested. Here is an extract from an email I sent to colleague who was after a recommendation: Yep. Mudbrick is great. Great food. Guests can choose from up to 4 entrees, 4 mains and 4 desserts. I definitely recommend having a reception at a proper restaurant. Mudbrick is a wedding machine. Nothing can go wrong, seriously. Great photo opps too - even indoors. They even give you a comprehensive list of Waiheke (wedding industry) suppliers. So handy.   Some points to note:   We had heard lots of stories, from people who had been to weddings at Mudbrick, about how guests can 'go hungry' at Mudbrick weddings so we went for 8 canapes per person as opposed to 4/5/6 per person.   We were able to play around with the menu a bit to include some favourites i.e. we requested a 'hot' dessert to be added to the mix because they only offered 'cold' desserts. Some other places we considered were really inflexible re: the menu. We also had buckets of fries (in addition to potatoes and veges) at the table to avoid the 'guests going hungry' problem. In addition to breads and oil, we also had an amouse bouche (a small cup of really yummy soup) before the entree and a small sorbet after the entree as a palate cleanser. We also had cheeseboards later on. I don't think anyone went hungry and the chef was pleased with our food selection - even he said some couples skimp on the food and guests don't get enough (after we had confirmed our menu). Mudbrick didn't pressure us in to beefing up the quantity of food or anything.   We had also heard stories of how Mudbrick take ages between courses. This wasn't an issue. We had speeches between courses and timed it all down to the minute and told Mudbrick when to deliver each course. MC and Mudbrick had copies of the timetable.   Flowers: Vicki at Wildflower (Waiheke-based) is a legend. I almost cried when she delivered my bouquet - she totally nailed it. Goodness knows where she found pale blue hydrangeas. Way cheaper than Auckland florists too. Your friends will need candles at the table cos it can get quite dark, I didn't want tehm but they were recommended and I was glad to have them in the end. Vicki delivered our bouquets to where I was staying (The Boatshed - which I also HIGHLY recommend!) and set up all the tables with flowers, small candles etc. and even decorated the cake (a cheap 2-tier from Rocket Kitchen) with flowers and ribbon (which I chose and gave to her the previous day) and delivered and 'installed' Craig and his Groomsmen's buttonholes. BTW - The Boatshed made lunch for me and my bridesmaids - it was so yummy, and the breakfast the next day was amazing. Delivered via a dumb waiter so you don't even need to see anyone.   Music: We used Classic Strings (quartet) to play as guests arrived and during after the ceremony - they were lovely. We used 'Ric' (Justine Hoggard's (the Mudbrick wedding coordinator) husband) as our DJ. His music selection was good. We went through his song list before the day and told him what to play. People danced all night.   My only complaint - we served Veuve Clicquot before the reception. Limited to 25 bottles. We advised Mudbrick that when it ran out they were to start to serve our still wine options. But when we checked the invoice they had only ordered in 15 bottles of Veuve Clicquot and when it ran out they started serving their own Mudbrick bubbles. Like, everyone got a couple of glasses of Champagne but then Mudbrick wait staff went around topping glasses up with Mudbrick bubbles - appalling! I was wild. It still makes me mad. Lucky I didn't find out until the next day. We didn't want to serve any drinks before the ceremony but some people turned up really early, and Mudbrick had already started pouring drinks and lining them up, so we had to.   Um, what else... (I've gone totally overboard already I know...)   We pretty much booked out The Sands on Onetangi for family and friends. They were great. They even let us have our day-after-bbq there (i.e. we dominated the front lawn all day) even though other guests were there. We used Libelle Group caterers and they were really easy to deal with - nothing was a problem, we told them exatly what we wanted. They organised tents for shade/rain, a licquor licemce and everything. Their contact address is: johannes@libelle.co.nz. A few things weren't exactly as we ordered (so if your friends use them make sure they tell them firmly that substitues won't do - we wanted Daniel Le Brun, they served some other stuff; we wanted PUMP bottles, they served bottles of Signature Range water; we wanted fresh OJ, they served concentrate; we wanted Greek style yoghurt, they served runny Yoplait-type-stuff) but we didn't really care - the staff were great, Johannes was great to deal with, and as long as they had the hot ham and someone carving it, small bottles of chocolate milk and someone making icecreams in cones we were happy. Hardly anyone touched wine and beers.   The ladies at Waiheke Chauffered cars are so nice. I left booking cars to the last minute so we ended up wiith their Mercedez 'truck' which was actually perfect in the end - www.waihekechauffeuredcars.co.nz.   We used Auckland-based company Etcetera for our invitations and photography - I highly recommend Kelley and Emma. I love them! www.etcetera.co.nz