This week New Zealand received its first MICHELIN Guide, the guide’s first anywhere in Oceania. After a year of anonymous inspections, 110 restaurants made the inaugural selection: one awarded Two Stars, fourteen awarded One Star, and 35 named Bib Gourmand for good food at a fair price, spread across Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Queenstown.
None of this is news to anyone who has eaten their way around the country. What has changed is that the rest of the world is now paying attention, and there is finally a map of the best tables to go with the scenery. Good food has always been part of the journeys we build: Alex and Matt, who design our tours, plan their own trips around good food and a good cellar door, so most of these restaurants have been on our itineraries for years. Here is a region-by-region look at where the stars landed, and how these tables fit into a trip you are already taking.
1. Auckland & Waiheke Island
Most journeys begin here, and the city held its own. Ahi took a star for a menu built almost entirely around New Zealand produce, mapped region by region across the country. Tala earned one for its modern Samoan cooking and, in doing so, became the only Samoan restaurant anywhere in the world to hold a MICHELIN Star.
Forty minutes across the water, Waiheke Island picked up a star of its own at Mudbrick, the vineyard restaurant above Church Bay that looks back across the gulf to the Auckland skyline. It is the kind of long lunch that makes an easy first or last day, vines on one side and the sea on the other.
Tip: Waiheke is a short passenger ferry from downtown Auckland. It slots neatly into the start of a trip, while everyone is still finding their feet, or the end of one, on the way back to the airport.
2. Wellington
The capital has long claimed to be the country’s food and coffee heart, and the guide gave it two stars to point to. Ortega Fish Shack took one for the seafood it has been sending out for years, a warm, characterful room a few streets up from the harbour. Logan Brown took the other, a Wellington institution set in a grand former banking hall, its columns and high ceilings as much a part of the evening as the plates.
Tip: Wellington is compact enough that the harbour, the waterfront and both of these dining rooms sit within a few minutes of each other. It is a city best seen on foot, with an unhurried dinner at the end of it.
3. Christchurch
The city that rebuilt itself has quietly become one of the country’s most interesting places to eat, and the guide noticed. Inati earned a star for the shared plates it sends out from an open kitchen in the central city, and Tussock Hill earned one just beyond it. For a more relaxed night, The Monday Room made the Bib Gourmand list, the guide’s nod to the places doing genuinely good food without the white tablecloths.
Tip: Christchurch is the natural gateway to the South Island. A night here at the start of a southern loop is a good way to ease into the trip before the driving begins.
4. Queenstown, Wānaka & Central Otago
The south is where the guide saved its highest honour. Essence, above Lake Wakatipu in Queenstown, is the only restaurant in the country to be awarded Two Stars, a quiet dining room built around two tasting menus that change with the seasons and the produce. Near it, Rātā took a star for its produce-driven cooking in a leafy courtyard just off the town centre, and Amisfield, the winery out at Lake Hayes, took another for a set menu of whatever the kitchen judges best that day.
Over the Crown Range, Wānaka carried its weight too. Kika earned a star for its share plates, and the town’s Bib Gourmand list rounds out the picture: Bombay Palace for Indian, Francesca for Italian, and Muttonbird, cooking with native New Zealand ingredients.
Tip: Base yourself in Queenstown or Wānaka and Central Otago’s cellar doors and starred kitchens are all within an easy drive. It is the one region where you could fill several evenings from this guide alone.
How the dining fits the journey
A starred restaurant is only worth having if you can get to it on the right night, rested and on time. That is the part we handle. The day’s drive planned to end where dinner is, the table held for the evening you are in town, the dietary notes already with the kitchen. These restaurants fill up weeks ahead, and we can help organise everything to make sure your spot is reserved.
We plan the dining around the trip, not the trip around the dining. You tell us how you like to eat, from a long tasting menu to a quiet plate after a big day outdoors, and we build the days so the good tables land where they should. These are simply the ones we would steer you toward, now that the guide agrees. And the guide did not get everywhere: some of the best eating in the country is in regions it has not reached yet, Hawke’s Bay, Marlborough, Kaikōura and more, and those tables have been on our itineraries all along.
A table waiting, wherever the day ends
Tell us the regions you want to see, and we will build these restaurants into the journey, the starred rooms and the neighbourhood favourites both, each one timed to a day you are already having.
