We had a very special night out planned for some time with our three adult children and their partners, all aged 22-27 years. We eat out regularly at top Auckland restaurants, choosing the Sugar Club on this occasion for its special location and previous excellent experience there. One of our guests is an Australian on her first visit to New Zealand.
This was the first time we had ever encountered a restaurant demanding to see New Zealand photo ID from our adult guests once we had seated and placed our wine order. Our Australian guest had her NSW license and a photo of her passport, but no, this was not sufficient. NZ ID or a passport or you don’t get served alcohol. Not only was this utterly embarrassing and rude but we had had no prior warning of this request despite an email confirming our booking and a phone call during the day. A ‘special’ exception was made for our guest, but this most certainly put a dampener on our evening.
My pan fried fish was raw (as was another member of our party’s fish), so had to be returned and recooked. The rest of the meal was pretty good, but we will not be returning to the Sugar Club nor recommending it to our friends.
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