jester house cafe and tame eels

We went to the Jesters House for lunch in January and it was wonderful. We have 2 children aged 6 & 8 and they enjoyed macaroni cheese for lunch. I had fish with salad and potatoes and it was divine. My husband had seafood chowder which he enjoyed too. There are a lot of options in the cases inside for gluten and dairy free which was great for the friends that we went with. The gardens are beautiful and the kids had a ball playing and exploring. We would definitely go again.

Jesters House is such a beautiful place with so many lovely details. Love having a coffee there or a nice vegetarian burger :) Its also a nice place to visit when you have children with you. They can play at the nice playground, watch the animals or feed the eals.

A lovely place to spend a saturday brunch, great seafood chowder.great service, lovely gardens.for the children feeding the eels is a lot of fun, they are huge.

We went there for our wedding anniversary and the food was great along with the local wines and beers. The playground for the grandies is excellent and feeding the eels is a bonus

Great food in a relaxed outdoor setting. Indoors too if weather damp or cool. Get up close to the eels. Good value and you will likely remember the time you called in to savour.

Beautiful country cafe. Great food, drinks and service.Lots of play areas for little ones!It was lovely and relaxing sitting in the sunny garden with a glass of wine!

A quick stop for a coffee hit and couldn't think of a better place. Great surrounds, art and sculptured gardens. A great selection of gluten free treats, had to have the caramel slice and the Orange almond cake! Yum. Pay $2 and feed the eels and the cat will welcome you to feed it too. LolGreat place!

Awesome food, great atmosphere, and the kids loved exploring the grounds. A must on our annual holiday.

We had a great time here, feeding the eels, playing giant chess and the playground for younger children looked good - especially the rustic wooden animal creations :D Oh and the food was YUMMY!

Stopped in for coffee late afternoon. Cakes and coffee very good. Great environment. Played the giant chess, admired the sculptures. Awesome play area if you have young kids. Compost toilet explained well. Quirky and cool.

Lovely and quaint cafe a few kilometres away from the Motueka township and worth travelling from Nelson (around 33km). The table service was a bit slow - we ordered at about 12:53pm and received our dishes at 1:21pm. However, the service was quite accomodating. I had to tell the waiteress that we had to leave asap, she followed up our order and it came immediately. The food was tasty and fresh - very much worth the wait. If the service is quite long you can go down and have a look at the eels. They are very tame and you can touch them. The cafe provides eel food for $2 however that's per group only. Great place go to - highly recommended!

In fact this café won the New Zealand café of the year last year and it certainly lives up to its merits. Beautiful lunch with 2 of the meals being vegetarian. Excellent service and yummy food.

Went on a tiki tour today with friends. Went for lunch at Jester House, they had never been. As good as ever,as busy as ever. Thanks for a great lunch.

We stopped here due to the ad for tame eels and we were pleasantly surprised by the unique cafe and garden! Children would love exploring the garden and interactive wooden sculptures while adults can join in or enjoy the delicious coffee and food that is on offer.

We were driving by here on the way to some beach that was meant to be awesome and just had to stop when we saw the "tame eels" sign. We didn't eat here or even have a drink. But what we did do was way better...... We fed "tame eels" with the local "tame eel food" and it was rad! These are not as tame as you might think, so please don't try and give the eels a friendly pat. I'm pretty sure they will try and eat you :). That said, feeding these super "tame" eels was for some reason stupidly enjoyable! Just remember these eels look like they might try and eat your tiny tasty little toes!