The Mains Restaurant is the intimate dining room at On The Point, a lodge set beside Lake Rotorua on a private Kawaha Point property. Lake views and a small room give meals a strong sense of place, whether the visit begins at breakfast or is arranged as a more formal evening. The restaurant also welcomes non-staying diners for lunch and dinner, while private dining and celebrations can make use of the lodge setting. It feels integrated with the property rather than operating as an anonymous hotel service.
Head Chef BJ Sebastian shapes the kitchen around careful technique and a close relationship with its ingredients. Herbs, vegetables and fruit grow on the property, and eggs come from the lodge's own hens. What cannot be produced there is selected from New Zealand growers and artisans, including wagyu, farmed salmon, mushrooms and caviar. That combination gives the cooking a garden-to-table foundation without narrowing it to one rigid style, leaving room for bold flavour pairings and seasonal change.
Lunch and dinner deliberately follow different formats. At midday, the à la carte menu might move from a beef burger or fish of the day to hand-cut sourdough pappardelle, buttermilk-fried chicken focaccia or a New Zealand cheese plate. Dinner is a single-sitting set experience shaped by the day's produce. Breads, stocks, sauces, pastries and petits fours are made from scratch, so the meal's progression is as important as any one plate and can change as ingredients come into season.
A current sample dinner illustrates that rhythm through roasted tomato and capsicum soup, chicken roulade, a choice of wagyu or fish, and ginger-beer crème brûlée with poached pear. Suggested wine pairings draw on New Zealand regions, while the wider cellar includes both local and international bottles. Breakfast is equally considered, with house-made bacon, property herbs and house-baked breads appearing across the menu. From the first canapés to the closing chocolates, the restaurant treats the entire sequence as part of the occasion.
Address: 214 Kawaha Point Road, Kawaha Point, Rotorua 3010, New Zealand
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