The bar area at Swashbucklers. Photo / File
The Weekend team went to work, to find some of the best pub lunches around the city.
Westhaven Drive, (09) 307 5979
This is a Pacific pub lunch, declares my companion who is joining me with her two children. You won't find Yorkshire pud. It has one of the best beer gardens in Auckland, overlooking the keel-estate at Westhaven Marina, with the harbour bridge in the background. On a fine day, the kids can spot stingrays in the shallows, and collect coins, fallen from the pockets of adults swaying at tables above. Except the weekend we go, it's teeming with rain and we are about to pitchpole into single figure territory on the weather map. Don't let that put you off. Inside, it's cosy and warm. The interior is salty old pirate-meets-classic-earthy-Kiwi pub. The prices are Ponsonby-meets-waterfront. A steak is around $35 and the closest thing to a ploughman's lunch is pate and French bread, for $21. There are standing tables and stools, and solid, generous-sized tables in the dining area so if you are a group, you don't have to rework the table props to accommodate your shared plates. There's enough room for everyone and everything. The place is packed with couples and families. The greatest value in the house is the sashimi platter ($26) which includes snapper, salmon, trevally and tuna - a generous spread. We follow with to-die-for Southern Ocean scampi with garlic butter, calamari tossed in lemon and oil, a side of fries. The kids order fish (gurnard) and chips and chicken nuggets and fries. There's a bloody mary, nicely spiced, several glasses of house rose- which is Ned - an orange juice and a Coke. We finish with bread-and-butter pudding and steamed ginger pudding served with icecream - the winner. The wait staff are helpful, friendly and knowledgeable. A top location.
Spent: $245 for two adults and two children.
- Sarah Daniell
1171 Coatesville-Riverhead Highway, Riverhead
Vast, woody and cool and not too far from the city Hallertau would appear to have the semi-rural Auckland hipster pub lunch market in its pocket. But it's not as simple as that because, in spite of its cool, beardy, craft beer credentials, the giant site in Kumeu attracts a diverse crowd seeking its mix of classy food, clever booze matching specials, kids' play areas, live music, mix of indoor/outdoor vibes and general sense of city-buzz-in-the-country. What it adds up to is this: don't drive out here on the weekend for an impromptu lunch sans booking because chances are you'll be driving straight back. What used to be a cool little out-of-the-way place for an ad hoc Kumeu munch alongside the brewery's brilliant tasting paddles has sprouted into a behemoth of gastro-sophistication to go with the broadening of the booze on offer.
With my Mr Yakimoto rice lager I ate a terrific spiral of spicy sausage, accompanied by a phenomenal lump of mustard and several large chunks of flatbread stuffed with sauerkraut, all served - obviously - on brown paper on a chopping board. My wife had the enormous hearty beef burger. That's a misleading sample though. The food is diverse and typically extravagant. Alongside the burgers and chips and sausages were options like chipotle-braised lamb with freekah and preserved lemon.
At one end of the bounteous outdoor seating there's a kids' play area and climbing wall, while inside the seating stretches through multiple zones, a semi-private room, small semi-curtained areas, open glassy areas and so forth.
The bustle, which seems permanently on the edge of chaos, is reminiscent of a wildly popular weekend yum cha, and that's a good thing.
Spent: $72 for two adults and two pre-schoolers.
- Greg Bruce
2 Mount Eden Rd, Eden Tce (09) 379 3557
It was a slice of heaven, or rather, three rare beef slices of heaven accompanied by a Yorkshire pudding so pillowy an angel would have seen fit to lay its head upon it for a small snooze.
Galbraiths is about as close as we get in Auckland to a real British pub, and the venue's reputation precedes it.
An anxious host mashing together friends, workmates and family would be hard-pressed find a better place in the city to ask everyone to meet - it's impossible to feel uncomfortable in a place so unpretentious and what's more you know the food will be good.
Adorning the walls, hanging above the mandatory alehouse-brown patterned carpets, are the vintage mirrored beer and whisky adverts you spy in every country pub in England and behind the bar is an array of real ale - room temperature beer for those with a taste for it.
Sunday is for roast beef lunches and cosy beers underneath toasty heaters, a table of old timers gathered on one table and a feminist book group discussing politics at another.
Outside is covered so smokers can puff away even if it's raining, a firepit nearby for warmth.
We order triple-cooked chips not realising our lunch comes with triple-cooked potatoes already (triple cooked chips with a more potatoe-y shape); a crunchy starchy overload perfect for soaking up the last of the gravy.
Spent: $101.70 for two.
- Tess Nichol
5 Akiraho St, Mount Eden
It feels a little like having lunch at the large renovated city-fringe villa of your rich hipster parent friends. The large courtyard outside contains a sandpit and various play items and is overlooked by covered outdoor tables perfect for perching parents wanting to keep their kids in view but preferably out of earshot.
The courtyard flows into the cavernous main building, with its dream play space of a real, presumably non-working, car, which generally quickly fills up with children. You can also flow from the courtyard into Brothers Juke Joint, the attached and affiliated Southern barbecue eating place where you can order a bunch of slow-cooked meats by themselves or in sandwiches, with various fixings. The meat eating's good, smoky and spicy, and it comes quickly, while you wait, after you've submitted your order via pencil marks made on paper placemat. We had a double serve of the fantastically dangerous pork ribs as an accompaniment to sandwiches of pulled pork and beef brisket.
The drinks list is surprisingly brief but unsurprisingly bang-on, particularly when when it comes to beer, which is separated into categories such as hops, dark, alternative and sour. I chucked back a refreshing Bach Brewing blonde IPA and the missus had a sav.
It's in an old leather factory and the industrial feel is still real, but it's been combined with a bunch of retro couches and high tables and lots of light, so the feeling's something more like retro-modern-light, just right for a lazy Sunday.
Spent: $76 for two adults and two pre-schoolers.
- Greg Bruce
68 College Hill, Freemans Bay, (09) 376 4230
Not even the humble pub can escape the lure of food trends and the Cav is no exception.
On the menu: tuna poke, a beef katsu salad bowl and a spicy Southern-fried chicken burger.
But on Sunday the big white building overlooking Auckland's CBD returns to its roots, offering a beef or chicken roast with all the trimmings, portions so enormous you need help on hand to help you polish off the last of the stuffing. And they sell a supersized jug of Mac's for only $32 a pop - you won't see those prices at a craft beer bar.
Ornate frames surrounding enormous televisions elevate the basketball playing in every room, as if it's not just Sky Sport we're watching but something much more profound. Or at least I assume that was the effect on the huddled groups gazing up at the game, sipping their beer silently until a player did something amazing and they erupted into shouts of joy. I was busy stuffing my face with steak-cut fries slathered in tomato sauce and getting tipsy and sleepy, sitting in a shaft of sunlight shining through the window, so couldn't tell you who was playing.
Spent: $87 for two.
- Tess Nichol
Oneroa, Waiheke
Tomorrow, Cable Bay Vineyards' Verandah restaurant will be offering a Porchetta Sunday Roast for $40 per person - an Italian style roast lunch and spectacular views. (09) 372 5889 or info@cablebay.co.nz
Ponsonby
This pretty corner spot at St Marys Rd, has a classic French roast - every Sunday - lunch or dinner. (09) 950 4855 or reservations@augustusbistro.co.nz
Sandringham
A great spot to sit in the sun in this premium corner site, or inside, enjoy the pretty decor and nice service. But gird your loins - a pub burger for $25 is a bit rich - let alone an over-cooked, dry burger (we had to send ours back). A ploughman's platter will set you back $50. As Freddie, 10, said, "I guess they specialise in drinks." Just go there thirsty, perhaps.
Puhoi Village
A colonial pub established in 1879, with a staunch sense of community, and a favourite spot for motorcyclists with ZZ Top beards. It's a half an hour drive from Auckland, the food is humble and straight up, like the folks who run this place. You can get a toasted sandwich for $7, or the Works Burger for $12. Sit outside in the sun, or take a pew inside and enjoy the eccentric decor.
Northcote Point
The family lounge bar and outside garden is a delightful spot to enjoy a cold drink and the views of Auckland harbour. A grilled steak sandwich is $18 or kids fish and chips is $12. It's a big menu, with a wide range of options in beverages too, depending on your budget or appetite.
He shares how waiting decades to find his birth parents has enriched his own brood's life.