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Restaurants Overview

Auckland's cosmopolitan mix of cafés, restaurants, brasseries, and bars spreads from the city center to the closest suburbs. Appropriately enough, given the maritime climate, the local style leans to the Mediterranean, with a strong sideways glance toward Asia. Seafood is a strong suit. Don't miss such delicacies as Bluff oysters (in season March-August), salmon from Akaroa or Marlborough, Greenshell mussels (also known as green-lipped or New Zealand green mussels), scallops, crayfish, and two clamlike shellfish, pipi and tuatua. In spring, many restaurants will feature whitebait, known to Maori as inanga, which are the juvenile of several fish species. They are eaten whole, usually in an omelet-like fritter. You'll also encounter plenty of opportunities to try kumara, a local sweet potato and staple of the Maori diet.

The downtown waterfront area was extensively rebuilt for the America's Cup yachting series that straddled the millennium changeover. Princes Wharf and adjoining Viaduct Quay, an easy stroll from the city's major thoroughfare, Queen Street, now burst at the seams with dozens of eateries in every style from cheap-and-cheerful to superposh. High Street, running parallel to Queen Street on the Albert Park side of town, has developed into a busy café and restaurant strip over the last few years. You can get between Queen and High streets via Vulcan Lane, which has some attractive bars itself. Asian immigrants have spurred a flock of cheap noodle and sushi bars throughout the inner city.

Away from the city center, the top restaurant areas are Ponsonby and Parnell roads, both a 10-minute bus or cab ride from the city center. Dominion and Mt. Eden roads in the city, as well as Hurstmere Road in the suburb of Takapuna, over the Harbour Bridge, are also worth exploring. The mix is eclectic -- Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Thai eateries sit comfortably alongside casual taverns, pizzerias, and high-end restaurants. At hole-in-the-wall spots in and around the city center a few dollars will buy you anything from fish-and-chips to nachos, noodles, or naan bread. Ponsonby Road leads the field in outdoor dining, but Hurstmere Road is catching up fast.

To the west, out toward the Waitakere Ranges, the suburb of Titirangi earns a reputation as a dining village, with everything from low-key pizza, Middle Eastern, and Southeast Asian places to wine bars and upscale restaurants with harbor views.

Peak dinnertime in Auckland is between 8 and 9, but most kitchens stay open until at least 10 PM. Many restaurants, particularly in Ponsonby and Parnell, serve food all day, some with a limited menu between 3 and 6 PM; some still close between their lunch and dinner services. On Sunday and Monday, it pays to check whether a place you're interested in is open. Locals dress reasonably casually for a meal out; only in the most formal restaurants do men need to wear a jacket. BYOB policies have become scarce, limited mainly to ethnic restaurants such as Thai and Indian. There's usually a per-person corkage fee of a few dollars. Some restaurants have started charging a 15% surcharge on public holidays, reflecting their need to pay their staff higher holiday wages, but generally they will remind you of this surcharge when you make a reservation.