Let out your breath, relax, unwind and be at ease — that is the feeling The Good Home Marlborough is built around. Sitting on Queen Street in Springlands, Blenheim, this gastropub describes itself as a pub with an eye for the different and the delicious: an enticing array of drinks at the bar, tempting treats on the menu and the smiles of the friendly folk who serve them. The team has fashioned spaces made for feeling at ease — somewhere to put your feet up, hang out with a bunch of friends, or gather the good crew from the office.
The kitchen covers a lot of ground, from bar snacks and small plates through to hearty large plates, burgers, steaks, salads and desserts, with dedicated breakfast and kids menus as well. Chefs' specialty dishes are built on the finest local ingredients, and the bar showcases award-winning Marlborough wines.
It is about lunch with no plans for the afternoon, a cocktail or two after five, an easy dinner with the family, or a beer at the bar. Doors open from 7:30am Thursday to Sunday and 11:30am Tuesday and Wednesday, with the pub closed on Mondays. Table bookings can be made online, and gift cards are available — fitting, for a place built on the feeling of home.
There is a place like home. That is the promise pinned above The Good Home Marlborough, a gastropub on Queen Street in Springlands, Blenheim, and everything about it follows from that simple idea. It is, in its own words, a pub with an eye for the different and the delicious — your new local, with an enticing array of drinks at the bar, tempting treats on the menu and the smiles of the friendly folk who'll serve them.
The team has taken the feeling of home — comfort, ease, the place where you can finally relax — and fashioned spaces around it. Spaces to put your feet up, to hang out with a bunch of friends, or to gather the good crew from the office. It is about lunch with no plans for the afternoon, a cocktail or two after five, an easy dinner with the family, or a beer at the bar while the evening drifts by. Nothing rushed, nothing fussy — just the ease of being where you belong.
The menu runs deep. Small plates and bar snacks are built for grazing: double-crumbed jalapeno poppers stuffed with cheese, house-made cheese balls, pea, pork and potato croquettes with kewpie mayo, crispy cauliflower with sweet chilli, and a Korean fried chicken that comes with spicy Korean dressing and peri peri sauce. Seafood fans get crispy calamari, fish sliders of battered terakihi, roasted garlic and chilli prawns, and scallops tossed in garlic butter.
For the table, there are proper sharing platters — a seafood platter loaded with smoked salmon, prawns, scallops, calamari and fish fingers, and a meat platter carrying porterhouse, scotch fillet, Korean fried chicken and pork ribs with fries.
Large plates go heartier still: beer-battered terakihi fish and chips, seafood chowder with garlic bread, slow braised chicken in creamy wine gravy (the Chicken Fat Bird), chicken parmigiana, beef brisket, honey and soy glazed pork belly, and slow-cooked lamb shoulder or lamb shank. Steak lovers choose between a 250gm porterhouse and a 250gm scotch fillet, then pick a sauce, a side and salad or vegetables. Burgers hold their own too — a smashed beef burger stacked with cheese, bacon and fried egg, a Korean chicken burger, and a pumpkin quinoa patty for vegetarians — while salads, from a roasted veggie salad to a loaded Caesar, round things out.
The kitchen sources fine local ingredients for the chefs' specialty dishes, and the bar showcases award-winning Marlborough wines — no small thing in the heart of wine country. Desserts give the evening a proper finish: apple and rhubarb crumble, chocolate brownie, sticky date pudding with butterscotch sauce, or an affogato with your choice of liqueur from Baileys to peanut butter whiskey.
Unlike many pubs, The Good Home opens early. There is a dedicated breakfast menu, with doors opening from 7:30am Thursday through Sunday; Tuesday and Wednesday service starts at 11:30am. Friday and Saturday nights run until 11pm, other evenings wind down at 9:30pm, and the pub closes on Mondays. Families are well catered for with a kids menu, and vegetarian, gluten-free and dairy-free dishes are marked across the menu, with gluten-free burger buns available.
You'll find The Good Home Marlborough at 70 Queen Street, Blenheim. Tables can be booked online through the booking link on the website, and gift cards are available for the friends and family who are tricky to buy for — the chance to give them something they'll truly enjoy. Call the team on +64 3 577 6495. Then come on in, put your feet up, and stay a while.