New Zealand - Cafe Neve and Cock Saddle Cafe

Both on Main Street, Fox Glacier

Fox is a very manageable town, with the vast majority of eateries situated along a couple-of-hundred-metre stretch of Main Street. With our penchant for pizza, the choice for our first night was Café Neve. They do pizzas in three sizes, and the large size can be half and half for an extra two dollars. That made the large $NZ31, and since the mediums were $NZ19 each, we decided to split a large into half chicken satay and half lamb.

The pizza was huge (though one chap at the adjoining table managed to work his way through a large on his own – he’d obviously done the full-day glacier trek, rather than the half-day like us!) We were fortunately divided on preference – mine was for the lamb, with thyme and kumara. SG went for the chicken satay, which wasn’t very peanuty, but couldn’t work for me as it had pineapple on it, an ingredient choice I found rather odd.

The waitstaff at Café Neve seemed fairly new – our guy didn’t know much about the drinks selection, and although we specifically asked for half glasses of beer we got ‘handles’ (fortunately only a dollar more). Our dessert order was also forgotten, and a group who had made a reservation for five people couldn’t be accommodated at one table when they arrived at about 8:30pm.

The restaurant also did various specials and mains, with an average price in the high $NZ20’s.

The Cock Saddle was a bit more laidback, with some quality C&W pumping out (bit of Billy Ray, plenty of Shania, you know the stuff!) It has more of a Texas steakhouse type menu, with huge fish, beef or chicken burgers for $NZ18.50, a couple of Mexican selections and BBQ sauce ribs for $NZ23.00. Its lengthy drinks menu featured a range of bottled and draught New Zealand beers, as well as listing out all the liquors and spirits on offer.

The waitstaff here were very friendly and attentive – introducing themselves before taking your order, and they were happy for me to hold on to the menu after not ordering when SG did, since the leftover Café Neve pizza from last night was still adequately filling me up! A good option for families staying in Fox.