Auckland's best restaurants this minute

I'm often asked which Auckland restaurant is best. The answer changes all the time and is only definitively decided once a year in the Metro awards. But I can give you a pretty good list on any day of the week.

Go Fish

Oftentimes people walking along the street will stop me and ask ‘Jesse, you’re passionate about food and ingredients – where is the best place to buy fish?’


Well, that’s not strictly true. In fact no one has ever asked me about fish. If anything, people who know me generally avoid starting conversations about food. And as a rule, people who live in Auckland try not to be seen walking on the street if it all possible. I’ve seen a guy try to back a car into Prego.

Best Vietnamese in Auckland

If you have any interest in Vietnamese food, please make immediate plans to visit 'Try It Out', an authentic, charming and well-priced Vietnamese restaurant at 79 Atkinson Ave in Otahuhu, which is very much worth the trip. Maybe it won't even be much of a trip. Maybe you live in Otahuhu already and check this blog regularly in the hope that one day I'll mention an Auckland food secret found more than one kilometre from Ponsonby Road. Well your optimism has paid off. Today is the day.

Best of Wellington Food

I spent eight delicious years in Wellington, and I miss many tasty elements of that city: $2.50 long blacks from Deluxe, paua ravioli from Logan Brown, crèpes from the Manners Mall crèpist (no wait, that doesn't sound right). The best of capital city food can be found documented on a daily basis at the excellent Gusty Gourmet blog, and you'll find a superb mix of gossip, food and political juice on the highly regarded Roar Prawn. Both are recommended reading, as is the following insiders' list, submitted to Auckland Food Blog by reviewer, thinker and good buddy Alexander Bisley.

Metro Top 50 announced

Metro has released its latest list of Auckland's Top 50 restaurants, always an excellent starting point for getting a handle on the city's big names. I don't know enough about restaurant/publishing politics to critique the way the list is put together, but the results looks pretty good to me. I've managed to wangle an invitation to the awards ceremony on Monday night, which I'm most excited about, but until the big winners in each of 15 categories are announced at that event, here are a few observations from the list:

Auckland's Next Top Meal

Thanks for the correspondence on my last topic: best ever Auckland eats. Food and food memories change regularly according to one's mood, so I promise I won't hold you to your current picks forever. Here's some of my favourite replies from email, facebook and Twitter:

Feeding Doug the Builder

Taking an out of town guest to dinner requires a careful balancing act. You want to impress them, sure, but you want them to fell comfortable and happy too. It's all very well taking your mate from Hamilton to Prego for pizza, but if he asks for a stuffed crust and the waiter is anything but cool and accommodating, your friend's going to wish he'd stayed in with takeaways.

Best Japanese in Freeman's Bay

My friend Grant's favourite sort of restaurant is one that no one else goes to. He likes nothing more than sitting in a giant, empty room with his long-suffering wife, free from all the annoyances that come with a crowd – such as ambience, social interaction, and a shared sense of community. Predictably, as soon as he finds a suitably under-patronised restaurant, it closes down – but presumably only after the owner has retrieved the very last piece of expired produce from the back of the about-to-be-repossessed fridge and served it up to Grant as “Tonight's Special”.