Prospects: all you can eat, all grown up

Marlborough oysters three ways, a cherry-wood grill and a to-order menu that's all included. Queenstown's newest restaurant, reviewed over two hours on Brecon Street.

Anyone who has been in Queenstown long enough will remember Bazaar Interactive Marketplace, where you wandered a seafood cabinet, a wok station and a grill with a plate in hand. Prospects, Queenstown's latest restaurant, takes the same idea — one price, as much as you like — and turns it up several notches. It comes from the owners of Charley Noble in Wellington, which is listed in the 2026 Michelin Guide New Zealand.

My husband and I went on Sunday 20 September, and we went hungry.

How it works

Prospects is at 35 Brecon Street, a short walk up from town and a few minutes below the Skyline gondola.

They call it "all-you-can-eat à la carte", and that is closer to the truth than "buffet". Some of it you fetch yourself: the raw bar, the carving from the cherry-wood fire and rotisserie, the salads and desserts. The rest comes to you. A card on the table lists dishes cooked to order — flatbread, grilled or beer-battered oysters, four-cheese gnocchi, prawn spaghetti, chicken pie — and they are included in the price. The table is yours for two hours and the kitchen keeps cooking.

The printed To Order card on a table at Prospects, listing flatbread, grilled oysters, beer-battered oysters, four-cheese gnocchi, prawn spaghetti and chicken pie.

The fit-out is beautiful: dark timber tables, deep green banquettes, room to spread out. On a Sunday night it was medium busy — enough of a hum to feel like an occasion, and no queue at the oysters.

The seafood

This is the reason to book. The Marlborough oysters are flown in daily and they are huge — two-bite oysters, if you have any manners. We had them natural with mignonette from the raw bar, then twice more off the to-order card: grilled with chilli garlic sauce, and beer-battered with tartare.

Two large raw Marlborough oysters on a plate beside a small bowl of ika mata at Prospects.

Grilled oysters with chilli garlic sauce and beer-battered oysters with a pot of tartare sauce on a stoneware plate at Prospects.

Around them sit salmon sashimi, ika mata with tiger's milk and coriander, a ginger prawn cocktail, and a steel bowl heaped with prawns on ice. It is the breadth that gets you. At most all-you-can-eats the seafood is a sideshow to the carvery. Here it could carry the night on its own.

A plate of salmon sashimi with pickled peppers and lemon, with a prawn cocktail and a plate of oysters behind, at Prospects.

In the glass: Mt Edward Chardonnay from Gibbston, $13 a glass. We had a couple each, and it was a great match for all that seafood.

A glass of white wine beside a plate of oysters and a small bowl of ika mata on a timber table at Prospects, with a green banquette behind.

Everything else

It would be easy to fill up on oysters and call it a night, but the rest earns its place. The cherry-wood fire and rotisserie turn out Canterbury spring lamb rump, scotch fillet with café de Paris butter, free-range chicken with chilli and fennel, and pork belly, and the meats were fantastic. So were the salads and the desserts, which is not something you can say of every all-you-can-eat.

We found room for the gnocchi too, with wood-fired broccolini, sage and shaved almonds. There are also dumplings and bao, a seafood chowder, and Yorkshire puddings for anyone pacing themselves badly.

Four-cheese gnocchi with wood-fired broccolini, sage leaves and shaved almonds in a stoneware bowl at Prospects.

Is it worth $158?

It is expensive, and there is no way round that. $158 a head before drinks puts Prospects at the top end of a night out in town. But it is a premium experience and it is priced like one: nothing on the to-order card costs extra, and you could run up a fair bill on oysters alone anywhere else.

Go hungry, give it the full two hours, and treat it as an occasion rather than a quick dinner. Light eaters will struggle to get their money's worth. Seafood lovers won't.

The Shortcut

WHERE: Prospects, 35 Brecon Street, a few minutes below the Skyline gondola.

STYLE: All-you-can-eat à la carte — raw bar, cherry-wood grill and rotisserie, and dishes cooked to order — over a two-hour sitting, from the owners of Wellington's Charley Noble.

VIBE: A beautiful room of dark timber and green banquettes, built for lingering.

THE VERDICT: Bazaar, all grown up. Come for the seafood, stay for the fire, and leave the car at home.

PRICE: $158 adults, $58 children 5–12, under-fives free. Drinks extra; Mt Edward Chardonnay is $13 a glass.