The Dairy

Situated in the hipster-​ish Ponsonby Central, The Dairy is a little store where you can get booze, ice cream and sweet treats. We stopped in here for dessert and it was banging. Mmm… The only let down was the salted caramel ice cream which just wasn’t quite right

The Melt bar is part of ‘The Dairy’ a great new little addition to Ponsonby Central where you can great desserts like sundae’s of gourmet ice cream decorated with fairy floss or sandwiched between freshly baked cookies. The homemade meringue and marshmallows are scrummy too. Ice cream soda’s served in retro glasses. All great. Get down there for a naughty treat.

The most magnificent selection of local hard and soft cheese, with some really hard to get French cheeses mixed in for good measure.
Wonderful service, super knowledgable, friendly staff, and so many cheeses to taste!
Our faves… all from NZ.
1. ⁵⁰⁄₅₀ goat/​cow soft cheese
2. sunset blue
3. ashed goats cheese
Divine with a glass of local wine, and some oysters!

It is a super cold day, you’re having trouble heating up… Need something for the soul? Do what I did… Go to the dairy… I did & my soul was throughly warmed.
Not just because my sammie was scrummy two sunside up eggs, delicious smoked bacon a little Mayo & some greenery. But because the server was delightfully peppy. She was stoked to have us come & eat there. Which made my lunch time experience just that much more enjoyable.
Also I had a triple chocolate milkshake, which was decadently chocolatey. Really I was a happy camper.
Many people have come & tasted the icecream sandwich, which is so much better value for money than two scoops of icecream. I didn’t have one this time (it was too cold) but I have been there specifically for that yummy sandwich three or four times now. All I can say is they are amazing.
The last thing I will say is that value for money isn’t really what you get here I’m afraid. I think it was $ 15.50 for the bacon, egg sandwich. That is for what the ingredients are quite an expensive sandwich. It doesn’t get much cheaper for the other options. So just bare that in mind.

Chocolate cookie on one side, chocolate chip on the other, Kapiti hokey pokey sandwiched in between, fairy floss on top — perfection! Don’t try and eat it all yourself though, that’s a lot of cookie. As we were leaving they brought out a new chocolate covered marshmallow variation with dried raspberries on top, now that’d be nice…

Boy oh boy! So I came for the cheese and cider tasting but the ice cream sandwich has won hands down for ny sweet tooth. Ginger biscuits with creamy vanilla ice cream in the middle and a healthy helping of a cider reduction. The dairy had nailed it. I’ll be back to try all the other flavors throughout summer.
Oh and for a little more brie too. And keffer cider pear for the win!

Oo I’m going against the consensus here, but the donut ice cream sandwich was not so good. Donut was too dry and the ice cream was called ‘old school strawberries and cream’ so I thought yay, real cream? No. Lol. Haven’t tried anything else but it was full so I guess that’s saying something?

I really enjoy coming to The Dairy! This café brings back so many childhood memories, from candy floss to sodas to freshly baked cookies straight out of the jar! It really is a one of a kind.
First time coming here, I almost felt like a giggly schoolchild again, forever trying to decide on how many cookies I wanted and which delicious Kapiti ice cream flavour I wanted to sandwich between them.
I love that the cookies are HUGE and they come with generous amount of ice cream, which honestly makes them a bit tricky to eat as they can get very messy, but I suppose that is all part of the fun and remembering what is was like to be a kid?
Personally, I think The Dairy is great for any ages. I took my Mum once and even though she didn’t try anything, she got a lot of joy out of watching my older sister and I trying to eat their giant ice cream sandwich cookies!
Highly recommend this place!

Well, after the coffee, the burger, what is left to eat at Ponsonby Central. I thought of milkshakes!
The vanilla milkshake is really nice, if they made it a bit thicker, I would have rate them higher.
Will update this review later when I have had more chances to sample their other offerings.

I love the look of The Dairy — Great attention to detail has been made to this joint — the way the cheeses are displayed really full and stacked and the cheese room with the hole in the window all adds to its charm. I’ve tasted numerous free tastings of all sorts of cheese here — who knew we could do cheese like the French and Italians here in wee NZ?
The ice-​cream sandwiches are an obvious choice for an anytime dessert following breakfast, lunch or dinner at Ponsonby Central — you can choose from a range of giant disc shaped biscuits like Peanut Butter and M&M and sandwich between it ice-​creams like Vanilla Bean and Chocolate Fudge.
The staff are cool and interesting too. Definitely recommend this place to anyone!

Not «A» Dairy … but «THE» Dairy.
For good reason: CHEESE. ICE CREAM. REPEAT.
Nice range of Kapiti ice creams, NZ cheeses and other delectable treats (such as giant-​sized freshly baked coconut cookies… YUM). They also have a breakfast and lunch menu (but I have yet to give anything a try). Rumor has it beer and late nights are a-​coming, too.
My only complaint? The (slow) service. There was only one guy tending to both the seated customers and ice cream to-​go patrons. This made for quite the wait for my scoop of ice cream…
Yet…it’s difficult to stay in a bad mood when immediately thereafter you get to bask in the sunlight while enjoying a combination of Kapiti’s signature gingernut and fig & honey ice creams (clearly gingernut was my fave ;)).
I also hear they do a mean ice cream sandwich… clearly coming back for a test soon!

Wheel upon wheel of New Zealand cheese, Kapiti icecream by the scoop, rotisserie chooks and chewy cookies that upon request can be made into ridiculously huuge (and unbelievably good) ice cream sandwiches… seriously, what’s not to like! Okay, so I will admit that the cheese is little pricey but you get what you pay for, which is beautifully made NZ cheese.
Mention must also be made of the service at this joint. I came here recently with a friend for a post pizza ice cream juuuust as they were closing and not only did the friendly bloke behind the counter give us a mini cheese tasting (not that we needed it) but he also offered us complimentary nerds with our ice cream. Not sure if this is standard procedure but we were absolutely chuffed — I hadn’t had nerds in years! He even offered to unstack some of the chairs so we could sit and enjoy our ice creams inside, out of the wet and windy weather outside. Bless his little cotton socks.