Where To Eat In Wellington Right Now

You know the best thing to do with pāua? Make a quick milk and flour batter, add some onion, dunk in the pāua flesh, plenty of garlic butter, then cook it up in a pan on the beach, straight from the ocean.

That’s what my taxi driver told me he free dives for them off Breaker Bay and Moa Point, just near the airport at Wellington’s wild southern tip.

Once they die, they’re tough as hell that’s when you want to break out the old-fashioned mincer, or a tenderiser if you fancy a whole pāua steak.

The people of Wellington seem to know a thing or two about food, and how to eat in style (I can’t imagine anything more stylish than eating fresh pāua on the beach).

The city offers a delicious and walkable tour of tasty and adventurous dishes, served up with genuine passion and a sense of fun.

Plant-based fine-dining breakfast at Hillside Kitchen

The tiny Hillside Kitchen in Thorndon is known for taking seasonality seriously. They gather, they grow, they preserve. All this I knew before visiting, but it was the sheer prettiness the delicacy of flavour, the loveliness of the plating that took me by surprise. Our table did not always agree on the flavours but what’s more fun than a little something to talk about over a meal?

The menu appears straightforward enough, including snacks, rewana, porridge, toast. But the sourdough is violet with purple dawn kūmara, and the custard is set in its own delicate eggshell. Even the pineapple sorbet has secrets, revealing itself to taste of pine and apple.

The standout for me is the hash brown gratin, layers and layers of the finest slices of potato piled up like a Viennese torte, and topped with house-fermented black garlic which has been scooped into delicate caviar-esque pearls, the fanciest breakfast dish I ever saw. Hillsidekitchen.co.nz

Bringing back the power lunch at Boulcott Street Bistro

In Wellington, the power lunch never went away. It’s 12pm at Boulcott Street Bistro and the dining room is heaving with martini drinkers and crayfish eaters.

The correct way to begin is with a martini for the Wellington on a Plate festival, a special has been created the Martinborough Martini with brown butter-washed local gin, Palliser Estate chardonnay vermouth, and fresh dill (and served with a crayfish eclair, natch).

With a start like that, by 2pm it's no quieter here. While a visitor may have expected the crowd to thin, mooching back to the office, spirits lifted, at Boulcott they're still ordering wine by the bottle and feasting on French onion soup, beef tongue and black pudding. If it ain't broke, after all. Boulcottstreetbistro.co.nz

A mindful pint at Aro Valley’s Garage Project

You’ll have heard of the Garage Project. It’s the little craft brewery that started in Wellington before there were any other craft breweries around here. They began in an old petrol station, the BP in Aro Valley co-founder Pete Gillespie says when they started offering free tastings, they were warned that Kiwi beer drinkers would take the piss (quite literally), overindulging for the sake of a freebie, but it never happened.

Now, across the road from the garage, you can cram into the groovy little Aro Taproom, which was an old woodwork shop until Garage Project moved in (Ron the woodworker still lives upstairs, and you can see his work in the rosewood beer taps behind the bar). The beers can run strong here the ABVs climb easily up into the 11% and higher.

But Garage Project has also been at the forefront of producing some of NZ's best-loved low alcohol beers (such as the 1.5% Fugazzi and the almost impossible to find 0.5% Tinie), for those who might prefer a more mindful pint, so you don't lose the afternoon in this cosy space. Garageproject.co.nz

A pumping breakfast spread at Egmont Street Eatery

They know they’re good at Egmont Street Eatery. On a Saturday morning, the music pumps (at an appropriately breakfast-y level) and the staff are ferrying bloody Mary’s around the floor with confidence.

We order smoked potato hash with braised pork shoulder, and buttermilk waffles with tamarillo marscapone I’m not gonna lie, it’s brilliant hangover food. Last year, Egmont Street Eatery took the top prize in the city’s Burger Wellington festival.

Following the big win, they’re expecting to sling nearly 8000 burgers this year, in a competition that only lasts two weeks. They’ll be serving a Saigon Smash a Southeast Asian-inspired burger featuring a beef patty, pate mayonnaise and loaded with Vietnamese mint.

And their Cocktail Wellington entry? The Hanoi Coffee Club an old fashioned, but with pisco, sherry and coffee liqueur, then disguised as an iced coffee, or as manager Jonathan puts it, "the very best cocktail disguised as the worst". Pure confidence in a coconut cream-topped glass. Egmontstreet.co.nz

Getting lost in Moore Wilson’s

Could there be a better way to go? Lost and happy in the aisles of Moore Wilson’s, Wellington’s family-owned specialty grocery store that offers the best of NZ produce in large-scale. Why don’t we have a Moore Wilson’s in Auckland? It’s the great injustice of these anti-supermarket times.

For the full experience, get amongst the shelves of the industrial warehouse sections stacked high with 20kg bags of aged rice and discounted kimchi, and press your nose against the fridges to fully appreciate the wheels of cheese, stacks of cured meats, and fresh flowers.

Next, eye up the whisky glasses, milk tumblers and the rainbow of French ceramic cookware. It's the stuff of food dreams. Go. Moorewilsons.co.nz

Kosher spice at Field & Green

Field & Green is in the business of European soul food koftas, confit chicken, leek sauces and Eccles cakes. But this month chef Laura Greenfield is taking diners on a journey to the Jewish communities of India, near Mumbai, on the coast of Kerala, and in west Bengal near Kolkata.

There is no pork, seafood or beef, of course, but there are spices from Iraq and Syria, fish dishes from the Malabar Coast, and revelatory curries (Jewish cuisine doesn't allow for the mixing of milk and meat, but Indian cooking allows for creamy meat dishes made with coconut milk). The lamb-stuffed pancake lamb keema rolled into a pancake, then crumbed and fried is a spicy, crunchy eye-opener, especially when eaten with the coriander chutney (a recipe borrowed from Claudia Roden's Book of Jewish Food).

For the full experience, sit at the back of the restaurant at the chef's bar, a stainless-steel extension of the kitchen itself, and watch the action up close. Fieldandgreen.co.nz

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