Marbles Buffet is the named dinner restaurant inside The Devon Hotel, but it operates as a public dining destination rather than merely an amenity for overnight guests. Tables can be booked seven evenings a week, and the scale of the room and buffet gives the meal an occasion-like feel without requiring a formal set menu. Because the food changes from day to day, the pleasure lies in making several passes and composing a plate from whatever the kitchen has prepared that evening.
Seafood gives the opening side of the buffet a clear identity. The restaurant regularly sets out its seafood chowder alongside a soup of the day and fresh breads, then expands into mussels, crab, shrimp and other marinated seafood. Deli platters and a broad salad selection add lighter contrasts. This arrangement lets diners begin with a small bowl or cold plate before deciding how much room to leave for the carvery and hot dishes that follow.
The hot section is designed around choice and movement. A roast of the day is sliced from the carvery with potatoes and fresh vegetables, while selected items are cooked on the grill in view of diners. Alongside them sits a changing group of hot dishes influenced by kitchens from around the world, plus vegetable sides and fries. The result is more varied than a single roast dinner and makes it easy for a mixed group to build very different meals from the same buffet.
Dessert continues the generous format with house-made sweets, whipped cream and a self-serve ice-cream machine, followed by cheese, crackers, tea and barista-style hot drinks. That final stretch makes Marbles particularly well suited to birthdays and multigenerational gatherings where nobody wants to rush. The restaurant also offers private dining areas for groups of different sizes, allowing a celebration to keep the flexibility of the buffet while gaining a more contained room of its own.
Address: The Devon Hotel, 390 Devon Street East, New Plymouth 4312, New Zealand
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