Frommer's Review, 2006
Always broad in its focus, Pacific Rim cuisine comes peppered with a few international touches at this extremely popular Wanaka restaurant. Palm-sugared quail, for instance, is not exactly of Pacific origin, but you won't be complaining when you sink your teeth into it. Casual by day and moody by night, with a menu that combines a wealth of interesting flavors and a big wine list, Missy's is sure to endure. It has the best wine list in Wanaka and probably the most professional service.

Customer Testimonial
Very impressed with how you and Tony have endured the quiet times and have put out during the busy times - and continue to get better and better. We need more people in the industry like you. Aloha, Sue Yates,
Silverpine Lodge (1 Sep 06)

Cuisine Magazine, July 2003
Missy’s Kitchen Restaurant and Bar

Level 1, 80 Ardmore St
Ph: 03-443-5099
www.missyskitchen.co.nz
Licensed
Open: 7 days, bar from 4pm, dinner from 6pm, brunch Sat – Sun from 10am

Cuisine rating:
Eat: 8 Drink: 8 Look: 7.5 Care: 7.5

During daylight hours, expansive views over the lake front and mountains beyond attract attention at Missy’s Kitchen. But at night, it’s the smart, sophisticated city ambience and, of course, the food that make it one of Wanaka’s best places to dine.

Chef Hayden Robinson’s food is contemporary Pacific Rim, confident with well-defined and brightly balanced flavours. A delicious example is the saltiness of prosciutto contrasting with the sweetness of a manuka honey-roasted pear, and the sharpness and crunch of watercress salad with a ginger wine dressing. The brightness of the lemon and mustard relish superbly complements the rosemary and palm sugar marinated quail (pity it doesn’t come boned), superbly partnered by a Framingham classic Riesling.

Also recommended, if it’s on the menu, is the moist, slightly pink pork fillet with ginger kumara puree and cranberry coulis. And in season, don’t pass up the intensely flavoured summer pudding made with local berries and homemade sourdough bread.

About 70 wines, selected by Darren Edwards, the knowledgeable sommelier, include a few by the glass, and a smattering of older ones from such iconic wineries as Dry River, Martinborough Vineyard and Goldwater Estate, as well as some from Central Otago. A few wines come from the private cellar of owners Tony Lynch and Brenda Jessup, who also own Ministry of Food café and catering in Wellington. There’s an extensive selection of imported beers and some of our best local brews, single malts, aged tawny ports and interesting teas. The coffee is good, too.

- Charmian Smith

Sunday Star Times, 15 June 2003
Dining Room with a View

Rating
Food: Hearty basics served with panache ****
Service: Professional and attentive **** 1/2
Wine list: Extensive and eclectic, limited selection by the glass ****
Ambience: Just the right amount of style, entrance lets it down ****
Overall: Worth driving almost an hour over the Crown Ranges if you're
staying in Queenstown ****

(Star rating out of five)

Christchurch Press 10/10/02
Wanaka’s royal welcome

Missy’s Kitchen
What: restaurant bar.
Where: 80 Ardmore Street, Wanaka, phone (03) 443-5099.
Upside: wonderful food, friendly service, and one of the best views in Wanaka.
Downside: too far away.

A large fire beckons – what more welcoming sight on a chilly Central Otago spring evening, spirits high after a day on the golf course, or in the case of most of the obviously affluent diners, punishing their middle-aged bodies on ski-fields nearby.

Open for just three months, Missy’s is Wanaka’s newest “somewhere special” for the dining-out set. It is pitched at the top end of the market, with all the positives and none of the pretensions of its city counterparts.

In a prime position on the first floor of the new Infinity retail and office building, the restaurant overlooks Wanaka’s foreshore. On a clear night, diners look out to the town’s lights dancing on the lake and large snow-covered mountains dwarfing the small but growing settlement.

By day the view is even more spectacular. Bring on summer, and the balcony, opening from large windows and doors, will be packed.

I am holidaying with a friend and our three teenage daughters. Anitra and I need a girls’ night out – a break from the bach and the teenage diet of stir-fries, hip-hop music, and trash TV.

We haven’t booked, but as we peek tentatively through Missy’s front door the host calls us inside.

Noting our shivers he assumes correctly that we want the table by the fire, and so ushers us to the prime spot. Glancing around we are certainly the shabbiest of tonight’s clientele; nevertheless he is treating us like two princesses, talking enthusiastically about the restaurant.

It is a contrast to an earlier day out at a rival restaurant, where the owner, bemoaning pretty young things who preferred partying to work, offered us jobs in the kitchen or waitressing.

Tonight an elegant waitress advises us on the extensive wine list. We waver between two chardonnays and she suggests the cheaper, a Sanctuary 2002 at $25 a bottle or $7 a glass.

We share the freshly backed sourdough bread with dukkah, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar for dipping ($10). We are thawed, and the bonhomie of fellow diners is infectious.

As appropriate for a tourist town, local produce dominates the menu. Two vegetarian dishes are among other offerings based on lamb, chicken, blue cod, salmon, and venison. It must be the wine but Anitra, who is not a big fish fan, surprises by choosing the seared South Island salmon on a bed of new asparagus with roast pepper and chilli coulis ($28). The salmon, which melts in her mouth, tastes as good as it looks, she says.

Indecisive as always, I assess meals arriving at the neighbouring table before opting for ribeye steak. It arrives on a horseradish potato cake with roast tomatoes and baked mushrooms ($29.50). It cannot be faulted (the steak medium-rare as requested). We share the vegetables ($5) and are delighted the greens arrive lightly cooked and crunchy.

We are tempted by the dessert menu – pear and almond tart ($10.50), marmalade and coconut steam pudding ($9.50), and iced chocolate and coffee parfait.

To succumb would be greedy. We linger over our lattes, loath to leave. We have been treated royally, and the meal for two with coffee and drinks cost $93.

- Diane Keenan