Matagouri · Bobs Cove Lounge · The Cellar Room
Dining at Coastal Verge
A restaurant, a lounge bar and a private dining room, all on the ground floor and all open to visitors as well as house guests.
The Restaurant
Matagouri
Named after the thorny scrub that survives everything Central Otago throws at it, which felt about right for a kitchen in a ski town.
The menu is short and changes four times a year. Cardrona lamb and Fiordland venison are on it more or less permanently; the rest moves with what is available — Bluff oysters from March, stone fruit out of the Cromwell basin through summer, whitebait in the spring if the season is any good.
Ninety covers across two rooms, with the lake-facing half kept for dinner service. The wine list runs to about two hundred and forty bins and leans deliberately local: Gibbston Valley and Bannockburn pinot noir make up nearly half of it, and there are eighteen wines by the glass.
Dinner bookings are recommended from Thursday to Sunday and essential in July and August. Breakfast does not take bookings — come down when you are ready.
On the menu
Slow-cooked Cardrona lamb shoulder with kūmara and salsa verde. Fiordland venison, celeriac, juniper. Akaroa salmon cured in Central Otago riesling. A vegetarian tasting plate that is not an afterthought, and a dessert list that always includes something with Otago apricots on it.
Three courses run about NZ$95. Dietary requirements are straightforward for us — tell us when you book rather than when you sit down and the kitchen will do something proper.
The wine list
Central Otago first, the rest of New Zealand second, and a small imported section for the things this country does not make. Our sommelier runs a tasting flight of four Gibbston pinots on Friday evenings at 6pm, NZ$45, no booking needed.
Corkage is NZ$25 a bottle for wines not on our list, waived if it is something from a vineyard within an hour of here and you let us try a glass.
The Lounge Bar
Bobs Cove Lounge
The room people actually spend the evening in. A long bar, a fire that is lit from April, low chairs by the window and no music loud enough to interrupt anything.
The cocktail list is thirty-odd long and half of it is built on New Zealand spirits — Reid + Reid gin out of the Wairarapa, Cardrona single malt, Scapegrace from Auckland. There is a decent whisky shelf and eight taps, four of them from Otago breweries.
The supper menu runs from 5pm until midnight: oysters, a cheese board off the Whitestone list, steak sandwich, chips that come with aioli whether you ask or not. It is also where the kitchen sends anything that comes off the gaming lounge floor above.
No bookings before 8pm. After that the window seats can be held for parties of six or more.
The Cellar Room
One table, fourteen seats, surrounded by the wine. Private dining for a birthday, a board dinner or a wedding party the night before. Set menus of four or six courses with matched wines, from NZ$145 a head.
Twenty-four hours' notice, and the kitchen will build the menu around anything you want on it. Book through the concierge or the events team.
The terrace, and room service
From November to April the terrace runs its own short menu — the lounge list plus whatever is coming off the grill — from midday until the sun goes behind Ben Lomond, which in January is close to 9:30pm.
Room service covers the full Bobs Cove menu 24 hours a day, with the Matagouri menu available during restaurant hours. There is no tray charge.
Opening Hours
When we are serving
Hours below are year-round unless noted. Christmas Day, Good Friday and Anzac Day run to reduced hours — call ahead.
- Matagouri — breakfast
- Daily 6:30am – 10:30am. Continental NZ$28, full breakfast NZ$38. Included on most packages.
- Matagouri — lunch
- Daily 12pm – 2:30pm. A short menu of five or six dishes.
- Matagouri — dinner
- Daily 5:30pm – 10pm, last orders 9:15pm. Bookings recommended Thursday to Sunday.
- Bobs Cove Lounge
- Daily 11am – 1am, until 2am Friday and Saturday. Supper menu 5pm – midnight.
- The terrace
- November – April, daily 12pm until dusk, weather permitting.
- The Cellar Room
- On request, minimum 24 hours' notice, up to 14 guests.
- Room service
- 24 hours a day, every day.