Bistro Gentil

  We had excellent food our entire wonderful Backroads trip but Bistro Gentil was my favorite.
Beautiful setting, comfortable seating, elegant casual decor. Servers were excellent, even serving our group of... read more twenty.
Great vegetarian options - I am pescatarian. Loved all three courses, had a goat curd and leak appetizer, moki fish entree - fish cooked perfectly, and creme brulee with sorbet for dessert. My husband had a cauliflower based entree that he loved.
Wine was good - like everywhere in NZ.

  Onion soup was wonderful. My husband had the lamb & I had the duck.. both dishes were done perfectly. Service was excellent

  We had an enjoyable birthday dinner at the cozy and romantic Bistro Gentil. The Chef and his team put much love into their dishes. They are beautifully plated. The menu... read more options cover a good spectrum. The self serve wine wall is a cool option. You...More

  The setting is beautiful with views to the lake and mountains beyond. The food is spectacular, every course was delicious, so fresh and amazing combinations of flavors, was definitely one... read more of the best meals we've ever had and we've eaten all over the world. Merci for making our 10 year anniversary special. If you don't eat here you're missing out big time.

  This is hands down the best meal i had during my entire 14 days trip in the South Island. Definitely amongst the top 10 meals , I had for ... read more past 18 months, which is saying a lot, since i have visited some top tier cities/countries...More

  Before we went here we had only reviews to go on. The website suggests going up in the afternoon, enjoying the stunning views of the lake over a wine-tasting and... read more staying for dinner. So we did.
The views are lovely and the sun shining in on us was warming as we were welcomed by a wonderful host for our wine tasting. In the end, over a little over an hour, we enjoyed three tasting trays between the two of us before moving on to dinner. Our wine host was knowledgeable, helpful but never in our faces or the slightest bit pushy. It was all about enjoying the day.
Our dinner also proved to be stunning with great but again not in-your-face service. We enjoyed beautifully presented and delicious amuse bouches, tartare for entree, the duck for main, a delightful palate cleanser and creme brulee that I have to rate as the best I have ever tried. All the food was amazing. And the wines included a wide range of Maude wines but also a wide range of wines from other vineyards.
Rather than just a night out, this turned into the pinnacle of our 4 days of dining and wining around Wanaka.

  Eye watering prices mediocre food. Not fresh not tasty.Very pretentious.They call it french cuisine but I doubt any frenchman would want to make that comparison.

  In a tourist town its not always a good sign when you see a bus at your dining destination. Some things feel best kept off the package-tour radar. ... read more A large table of casually clad tourists dominated the main dining room but fortunately we were escorted...More

  Bistro Gentil is described in a major tourist brochure for Wanaka as '...our award winning restaurant ' and came up as #1 on Trip Advisor reviews. The online menu looked... read more exciting too, so off we went for dinner.
Now I don't like writing negative reviews but I really was disappointed.
Wild venison carpaccio as an entree had about as much venison as a single thin slice of prosciutto. And with more than that in the form of poached pear, cranberry gel and sun dried tomato, I just couldn't taste the venison. It's not that these things don't go with venison, but the dish was so mean on the venison that it just got swamped.
It didn't get much better with the fish main. Three tiny pieces of monkfish, while tasting good, just didn't show the character of the fish. The celeriac puree was good, and could have been the main counterpoint of the fish with maybe one other flavour. But add prawns, leek, orange and bok choy to a tiny serve of fish and it just got lost. Somewhere there was apparently black garlic butter too... I've had many entrees that were more generous.
On the plus side, the garden salad was good and so were the wines (though a bit on the high price side by the glass).
Overall I think Bistro Gentil is trying too hard, maybe to hold or rescue some past glory. But the meanness of the and better balanced than this.
A French onion soup was sweet but maybe at the expense of some flavour of the onion. It was saved by a crust of gruyere but we're still trying to work out where the crouton was.
Overall the meanness of the feature ingredients in the serves, and the overcomplicated and overcompensated accompaniments, really it down.
I'm hoping they were just having a bad night, as their menu should really set you alight.

  Authentic French with some touch of brilliant flavours! We had a range of selection from menu. Each and every one was exceptional. Taste is believing.