A Foodie’s Guide to Dining in Wellington

When it comes to good food, Wellington is New Zealand's worldly pocket of innovative ideas, international flavours, and top-shelf local produce.

The best cafes and restaurants Wellington has to offer number in the dozens, and it's the city's walkability and approachable lifestyle that tie them all together into one mighty impressive food scene.
 

It used to be that the world's most discerning foodies would fly into the capital city for August's Visa Wellington on a Plate, a month-long food festival corralling the city's best chefs for special events and collaborative dinners. Now, Wellington's firm grip on New Zealand's gastronomic ambitions is a year-round thing. 
 

This isn't by accident. Wellington's food scene has been continuously built up with a wide range that rivals international food cities like Melbourne and Bangkok, offered in a much smaller, manageable format that continually pushes the standards while refining trends with the highly concentrated flavors of local ingredients.

Here, nature and technique has made Wellington the most underrated food city in the Southern Hemisphere. Here's how to make the most of it, from breakfast through to dinner.

The places with the best coffee in Wellington, and the best cafes in Wellington, are quite often one and the same. But you'll be doing yourself a disservice if you took the sit-and-sip route instead of enjoying your morning hit while on the move. 

A major part of Wellington's appeal is that it's a nice, pleasant city for a morning stroll. Those smaller, hole-in-the-wall coffee shops are most valuable for leisurely walkers. Take Little Grump, for example. The tiny pastry and coffee shop is only two streets back from Queens Wharf and is noted for its consistency and witty service. Coffee in Wellington is gold standard so grab your favorite milk-based coffee or espresso and sip it slowly while drinking in the jaw-plunging beauty of Wellington waterfront walk.

Pour & Twist on Garrett Street does things a bit differently. This is the only fully manual brew bar in the city, offering only specialty hand-brewed coffees refined with the kind of precision that's often lost on those overpriced machines. Your barista's steady hand and skill is tested more rigorously here, so results will always range from either good to extraordinary. These days, it's more common to see the green glow of an iced matcha coffee drink sliding across the small wooden tabletop, but filter coffee using rare imported beans you'll not find anywhere else is what keeps regulars happy.

Havana Coffee Works is as much about the transportive atmosphere as day-jolting shots of espresso. Inside Tory Street's most aggressively beautiful 1959 Art Deco building is as much a time capsule as a contemporary roaster, exhaling Cuban culture with time-kissed leather furniture touched up with Caribbean influences. On-site roasting pops in a bit of theater while baristas whirr their way to the perfect cup each and every time. As a bonus, they sell unique, colorful mugs and high-end coffee tools.

Locals love: Raglan Roast is the most reliable New Zealand coffee chain, with five locations marked around Wellington. So even if you're not up for a mission to find Wellington's best coffee, you can't go wrong ducking into one of these shopfronts. The most popular outposts are on Willis Street and Chaffers Dock. 

For a healthy city full of early-risers, breakfast is often treated with the same reverence and sophistication as dinner in Wellington. And so you'll find no shortage of breakfast spots dotted around town, whether that's a cute beachside cafe or an inner-city favorite.
 

Sitting on the breezy shores of Lyall Bay is Maranui Cafe, a long-standing institution with a funky retro aesthetic splashed with colour. You'll find it perched over the sand, serving big hearty breakfasts on a menu that changes often thanks to a focus on seasonality. Vegan breakfasts are taking off in demand, but the signature house-made sourdough crumpets, offered with simple toppings like whipped Zany Zeus feta with honey, will always be the star. If it's good enough for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, who visited during their royal world tour in 2018, it's good enough for you.
 

When strict diets are a concern, take the short skip down Lyall Parade to The Botanist. The vegetarian and vegan cafe gets by beautifully with its popular dairy-free buckwheat pancakes and tofu breakfast rolls, but there's so much scope here that you could enjoy something as simple as a chia bowl or get the full indulgence and stuff your face with one of their massive vegan breakfast burgers.
 

Neo Cafe & Eatery is an obvious choice. The multi-award-winning cafe edges the corner of Willis and Boulcott Streets in the city centre, offering classics elevated with the punchy flavors of local produce. The sightly stack of lemon meringue pancakes topped with zesty mascarpone, shortbread crumble and freeze-dried raspberry meringue is the trendy option, but regulars rave about the fish butty with a pan-fried fresh catch dressed with tartare and served on Turkish bread with salad.
 

Locals love: Wellington is proud of its health-conscious lifestyle so even if it isn't immediately obvious, your chosen Welly cafe should be more than happy to refine your favorites with more diet-friendly ingredients. 

So you've found the best brunch Wellington can muster, but what does the capital become when the day rolls on? The city's best restaurants range from cozy neighborhood bistros to standard-setting gastropubs, and there's plenty in between to build an enviable food scene that's still, in many ways, shockingly under the radar.
 

Ignore the big faded red lettering reading 'Kelburn Butchery'. In a previous life, this tiny yellow-lit store was full of sausages and steaks, but the shopfront is now a lightning rod for communal dining in Wellington's cutest hillside neighborhood. Graze Wine Bar has switched out the meat cleavers for Coravins, pouring fine, sustainable New Zealand wines alongside an ethos-driven menu of creative vegetarian dishes and a definitive selection of seafood.
 

Plimmer House, that sharp-angled Victorian gothic cottage that stands so distinctively in Wellington Central has hosted Boulcott Street Bistro since 1991. It's one of those tried-and-tested favorites that has been a steadfast champion of Welly's food scene through the ages, pioneering French food in the city and twisting it towards New Zealand provenance. It may sound like the least interesting dish on the menu, but the smoked buckwheat risotto with Swiss chard, roasted carrots and smoked tofu cream comes highly recommended.
 

Locals love: If you want a simple, local favorite that punches well above its weight, check out the food at Garage Project's Aro Valley taproom. The menu is simple produce-driven sandwiches and small dishes, but the hugely popular rockstar brewers make sure the food pairs perfectly with their eccentric beers.

The beauty of Wellington is that you're never far from good food, but you'll still want a central location to take advantage of the city's walkability. Novotel Wellington puts you at the centre of Wellington's most frequented attractions like the provocative Te Papa Museum a short walk in one direction, and Wellington Botanic Gardens in the other. 
 

If your limited time in the city is mostly taken up by good food (and even better wine) then this convenient location still means you can get a better snapshot of what makes Wellington tick. Besides, you've got lovely local cuisine at Caucus Restaurant & Bar and harbour views galore to keep you holed up, just in case Wellington's temperamental weather isn't playing nice. 
 

Insider tip: While there is a small onsite gym that's reasonably well-stocked with all the essentials, guests of the hotel also have complimentary access to the nearby Synergy Pool & Fitness Club.