Mister D (7 Tennyson Street, Napier)

Mister D has been famous in the area for quite a while now, particularly for its donuts. It was one of the first places in Hawke’s Bay to start selling cinnamon donuts where you inject your flavour of choice with a syringe. Being such a novelty, it caught on like wild-fire and its popularity absolutely sky-rocketed!

For a long time I had never been to Mister D for anything except donuts, but the amount of high praise that Mister D has received at various hospitality and dining events meant that I was very keen to get there to sample the rest of their menu.

The space is awesome – there is so much natural light (thanks to the sky lights), a high roof, and pops of colour. It has a fresh, modern feel about it. The kitchen is to one side of the restaurant and is essentially open plan with the diners – if you are sitting in the right spot it is cool to watch them cooking!

The menu is rather fancy, ironically when we ate there last we were one of the only tables without kids… and we thought it a weird place to choose if you did want to bring children. I thought it was a pretty expensive menu for lunch, but for dinner those same prices feel more reasonable. You are talking $30+ for most of the mains, and then you need sides with that as well. However, the dollars you pay are worth it – the food is pretty spectacular!

Same room for dessert… or donuts!