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In Wellington, restaurants, cafés, and sports bars spring up overnight like mushrooms. Although you'll never be without the classic meal of steak, fries, and ale, city eateries have also embraced more adventurous fare. Chinese, Thai, Japanese, Malaysian, Mexican, and Italian cuisines are increasingly common. Indigenous food, too, is appearing in restaurants around the city—native plants might be paired with traditional seafood or made into sauces to accompany meat or sweet-potato dishes.
In rural areas outside Wellington, the wine industry has revolutionized local tables, with excellent dining and wine-tasting spots. In the Wairarapa, restaurants are winning a reputation for creative cuisine.
Generally, lunch runs from noon until 2, and most restaurants close for a few hours before opening for dinner around 6. On Monday, many restaurants are shuttered. Dress codes are still really relaxed; jeans would be frowned on only in the top restaurants.
On the otherwise sleepy Petone Wharf is a vibrant Italian trattoria, where prestigious awards, relics of family history, and shelves of the finest Italian ingredients cover the walls. This spot was awarded the prestigious Ospitalità Italiana quality-approved seal and is recognized as one of the top 70 Restaurants with Pizzeria in the World by Ristorazione Italiana.
Adorned with its earthy-chic accents and wide wooden tables, Loretta makes a daily, but effortless transformation from a relaxed brunch spot to a bustling candle-lit restaurant. With their famously daily-evolving menu, brunches typically begin with smoothies and spritzers, waffles, and crumpets, each served with seasonal fruits. Lunch and dinner follow a similar seasonal theme with salads, wood-fired pizzas, savory pies, and hearty servings of seasoned meats to share.
Reveling in the lively waterfront atmosphere, Master Kong has a vibrant, fun, and sometimes spicy personality, both in its cuisine and its decor. The menu covers the most-beloved Asian street foods, ranging from fresh sake-cured salmon bites, to flavorful fusion-style dumplings, to Korean barbecue banquets. The menu is equally complemented by a large list of elaborate cocktails and mocktails. The varied and comprehensive menu, friendly service, and large tables make this an enjoyable spot for families and groups.
Though right at home among the seaside cottages of Lyall Bay, this plant-based haven is anything but traditional. The Botanist offers tasty and innovative takes on traditionally meat-centered meals in a seasonally evolving menu. It opens for brunch and then runs to late-night cocktail hours every day, and the menu is also complemented with appropriately botanical teas, kombuchas, and cocktails.
Set on the waterfront, with crab-pots and ropes hanging from the ceiling and walls bedecked in old-world maps and colorful recycled timber, the Crab Shack is an American-style diner with a Kiwi twist. Strong Cajun flavors and massive crab dishes are the order of the day, but there are plenty of land-based options if you don't feel like seafood.
At The Farriers, you can watch the chefs in the open kitchen while waiting for your order to arrive. Much of the large menu is devoted to pub fare and wood-fired pizzas, all made from scratch, but interesting main courses tempt those with more ambitious appetites.
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