Visiting Hawkes Bay soon? - Elephant Hill tasting room and Dining Re-opens

Elephant Hill winery, located in Te Awanga, Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand launches a new cellar door tasting concept Flight & Bites and re-opens the restaurant, from Thursday 22nd October.

Much of Elephant Hill’s business has been dependent on international visitors to our cellar door in Te Awanga, and to our award-winning restaurant which became a special destination for food lovers from New Zealand and overseas. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic forced changes to our cellar door operation, and the unfortunate closure of our restaurant. We had to commit to protecting, evolving, and developing the most viable long-term opportunities: our wine business, our winery and to create a more immersive wine experience for our much-reduced numbers of, New Zealand only, visitors.

We are delighted that six months on, we can deliver against that commitment, with the launch of our innovative Flights & Bites experience offering matching wine flights and food bites, hosted in our beautiful restaurant space. We wish to create a unique wine and food experience that will encourage more regular and repeat visits from locals and visiting Kiwis. Our opening hours are limited to five days per week (Thursday-Monday 11-5pm)

Our restaurant re-opens in a very different shape and form, offering dinner only for three nights per week (Thursday-Saturday 6pm-late). The primary focus is to create a food experience specifically designed to support and complement Elephant Hill’s wines. The restaurant operation is very much a pared down version of before and will be wholly run and managed by Head chef and his partner, Jason and Sabrina Brown. Despite the small team, the quality of food and service will not be compromised and will continue to offer the exceptional, world class cuisine that Elephant Hill has been renowned for. The team will also offer small plates and platters from midday during the cellar door opening days.