Alley Cantina 140 George Street, Central Dunedin, Dunedin, Otago 9016

"They are FANTASTIC. The service is 11/10 and the food is wonderful with great lively atmosphere. Chef took unnecessary and infinitely kind care to make our starters without butter as he noticed we had a vegan at our table. So kind and so warm. 100% recommend! Plus they have amazing margaritas :)) Also so so affordable it’s ridiculous. Vast vegan menu :)"

"Do you like inauthentic cuisine? Do you like chewing on cardboard? Do you like being the victim of a bait N’ switch? Well this is the place for you. Recently I made the choice to take my family here after talking it up thinking of fond past memories, but to my surprise after ordering from what appeared to be an identical menu to the one I’ve ordered from countless times before the food that arrived to our table was not only inflated in price but also vastly inferior. For starters we ordered the corn chips with Guacamole which have always been made in house but when they arrived they were obviously poured out of a bag which actually made me speechless. I considered that perhaps this was my fault and maybe i’d misread the menu but after looking at an online menu I was able to see the exact same items but with minor phrasing changes and original pricing. Next came out mains and my heart sank. Historically this has been my favourite restaurant in Dunedin but now it’s just a cheap, inauthentic impersonation. When it came time to pay I was asked if everything was okay to which I respectfully informed them that “no, everything was not okay” and after explaining I was given “well we have a new chef” and nothing more. Were there no recipes left by the previous chef? Maybe you should rebrand if you cannot meet the standards of the previous one? I walked away not only disappointed but as if myself and my family had fallen victim to a bait N’ switch scam. I will never return and recommend you do the same."

"Highly disappointed. We always go there for my birthday and my partner's. We went there again for my birthday tonight. Firstly many items on the menu are not available, food was not good (rice wasn't cooked, small portion, no flavour, and swapped capsicum to celery in fajitas?!). They did offer another plate of fajitas after I told them the rice wasn't cooked, however my partner already finished his meal, and the rice of the next plate was just sloppy and wet. The only posotive thing about the whole dinner was the nice and friendly waitress. Sad :("

"Hugely Disappointing! Went to alley Catina over the weekend and after waiting for over an hour for our food we were told that multiple items weren’t available! Surely they knew they were getting low on these items after taking our order and the fact we had to wait an hour and a half to be made aware of this was ridiculous. Left hungry & felt sick after the drinks we ordered while waiting for the food we never got. The cocktails we ordered tasted nothing like the real thing. We weren’t even given a discount on these drinks after being disappointed about no food."