Saffron Cafe & Restaurant

I've been to Saffron three times so far - and each time it was superb! The food is delicious, and the Saffron team cater well for dietary requirements. The special in-house tea is a lovely experience - and the saffron, pistachio and rosewater ice cream - oh my goodness - I've returned just for that alone! So good.

Great food and service with a smile. Huge servings. The menu is not huge but it’s easy to decide what you want and the dishes are authentic and have a homemade feel. The saffron ice cream is amazing and it’s really nice to sit and drink tea while the food settles. The owner kept filling the teapot and we felt no pressure to leave. My husband is from Nth Africa and the owner played music from that area when he found out which was a lovely touch. Definitely give this place a try. I’m very keen to try the breakfast next.

Amazing experience! Bader was so inviting and made it such an authentic and amazing ecperience to be transported into Persia, Palestine, Egypt. He even played us some amazing tunes on the speakers. We ordered the mixed kebab and mossaka. He went out of his way to remake us a personal batch of Knefah - the best we have had. So delicious! Finished with amazing spiced rose tea. Highly recommend checking out this gem!!

Like the reviews from others its a great place to eat out. We visited on a quiet Sunday eve and no one else was around. We got great service with a smile and food was so much that we had to take away most of it. Chef was really humble and nice and even offered more rice if we wanted!By far the crowd favourite was the lamb mandi. The falafel and secret menu fried chicken were pretty good too. After much debate we decided to take away some ice cream which was again generous portions and tasted really nice.Would happily go there again and also try the breakfast on the weekends.

Ordered Zaatar , Afghan boolani and chicken shawarama -all the dishes were amazing,friendly owner and good ambience Zaatar is recommended if you like medditerean cuisine :)

We ordered 6 different dishes this afternoon, and everything was tasty and delicious. The food was authentic and made with love. Everything is affordable and delivered with care. The staff are lovely and friendly. THE BEST Middle Eastern restaurant in NZ.تسلم الأيادي.

We visited on friday evening. It wasn't busy. Chef welcomed us with great smile. He was really humble and polite. We ordered Lamp shank mandi and chicken madi. Both had authentic tastes of Middle East. By far I liked Lamp shank more. He even gave us complimentary chips and offered us more rice aswell. Prices r reasonable.Highly recommend this place.

The moment you enter it smells so nice. I think it’s the tea and saffron and all the food. We ordered the chicken curry and half chicken with the rice. The curry was yummy and so was the rice. The grill chicken could have been nice except it wasn’t properly cooked. But, when we bought up with the staff they were nice enough to give us another.It’s definitely worth a try.

We visited on 4 Jan. Place wasn’t too busy. Nice ambience. This is mixture of middle eastern food or middle eastern fusion if one is allowed to make that term.However only one server. And service was patchy. That said this is a local owned family restaurant and they have recently started so can understand tht they r going thru initial phase.We had chicken mandi (whole chicken 50$)- (haven’t really had mandi before so difficult to comment On taste) . This was tasty but quite bland. Came with tomato chutney and your hurt.Also had lamb shank mandi (20$) which was also tasty and mild in taste. Very nice of host to give us complimentary rice.Their usual shish weren’t available. The waiter had to talk us thru the menu as we could t see the menu since not much was available from it.We also had meat dumplings (16$) for 8 pieces and falafel (16$- from Memory I think).We tried fava bean chutney and this was good. Plus hummus (ok-have had better hummus). And saffron ice cream. Which was a different taste (vanilla ice cream paired with saffron and rose water plus pistachio)Overall not bad food. And critically I would have appraised it at 3/5 (service needs to improve and dishes need more quantity). but given the new venture and a family running it with no other help. But Certainly recommended. Much better than the Afghan at Lincoln road.Apparently they do breakfast on weekends and would try thru next time.