Need sustenance between runway shows? Pick one of these highly recommended restaurants.
When taking in the action at NZ Fashion Week: Kahuria this week, one cannot live on canapes and champagne alone. Make it an even greater special occasion with a meal at one of these restaurants, all less than
Ahi
Walk from Shed 10: 3 minutes
Cuisine: Modern Fine Dining
Address: Level 2, Commercial Bay, 7 Queen St, central city
Jesse said: Ahi isn’t a generic business with a famous owner [Ben Bayly], it’s a wonderful, wonderful restaurant where the head chef is unmistakably the same guy who, [15] years ago, created food so incredible you couldn’t get into The Grove unless you booked weeks ahead. The food at Ahi tastes as good as it looks, and it looks perfect.
Alma
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Advertise with NZME.Walk from Shed 10: 5 minutes
Cuisine: Spanish
Address: 130 Quay St, central city, (09) 242 1570
Jesse said: [Alma has] become a byword for perfection. One of the loveliest things about dining here is the approach. I don’t know whether it’s they or the Britomart people who have strung fairy lights around the tree trunks but it’s a beautiful touch, and with the full tables of chatty diners stretched along the pavement, it creates a scene of glowing revelry visible long before you get anywhere near the place.
Origine
Walk from Shed 10: 5 minutes
Cuisine: French
Address: Commercial Bay, 2/172 Quay St, central city, 027 674 4463
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Advertise with NZME.Jesse said: The ultimate New Zealand compliment “it feels like you’re not in Auckland” really applies when you first walk in, though if you get a seat by the front window and start to notice the rhythm of the ferries coming and going across our beautiful oceanic front yard, you realise you actually couldn’t be anywhere else.
Rodd & Gunn The Lodge
Walk from Shed 10: 4 minutes
Cuisine: Bistro
Address: Cnr Albert and Queen St, central city, (09) 884 4200
Jesse said: This is bistro cuisine, but [chef Matt Lambert] treats the standard bistro menu as a leaping off point rather than an anchor. The familiar proteins and techniques are here but you can never guess quite what the execution will look like. Take the fish and chips which, well, who orders fish and chips at a restaurant? But I saw he’d included it on the tasting menu so I knew it must be something different. In fact it was barely a mouthful – a single chip, beer battered and topped with cured fresh snapper and a good tartare sauce. It looked beautiful, you got a decent hit of everything you love about this classic NZ pub meal and yet you didn’t have to spend your night chewing your way through a plate full of it.
Advieh
Walk from Shed 10: 3 minutes
Cuisine: Middle Eastern/Greek
Address: 1 Queen St, central city, (09) 304 0040
Jesse said: This is insanely good food, served with warmth and energy by a charismatic team of waiters. Even at the best places, most weeks I finish a meal and am finished with the restaurant. Walking out of Advieh, I couldn’t wait to go back.
Bistro Saine
Walk from Shed 10: 11 minutes
Cuisine: Bistro
Address: Hotel Indigo, 51 Albert St, central city, (09) 610 8404
Jesse said: What sort of food critic orders roast chicken? Honestly, I know Anthony Bourdain forbade it but sometimes you’re in the mood to eat it – and it’s now rarer than any other meat protein on serious Auckland menus so it feels like a treat. At Bistro Saine it is fantastic, served without bones on a bed of chewable barley risotto with cubes of sweet pumpkin. It’s finished with sage and a thin roasty gravy and the meat itself is so browned and crunchy it’s like they seared it with a hot brick.
Bossi
Walk from Shed 10: 7 minutes
Cuisine: Italian
Address: 10 Commerce St, central city, (09) 948 0906
Jesse said: Bossi is the restaurant Auckland has been missing. Fancy but friendly, precise but unfussy, it offers a menu of regional favourites from no region in particular. You will eat dishes you’ve never heard of here, alongside better versions of dishes you thought you knew.
Gochu
Walk from Shed 10: 3 minutes
Cuisine: Korean
Address: Commercial Bay, 1 Queen St, central city, 0210 905 2396
Jesse said: We had a good sample of Gochu’s menu, which has a lot of very good options. Eggplant and miso is a winning combo and here it just has a little tilt thanks to doenjang, Korean cuisine’s second most famous flavour paste which, while not interchangeable with miso, is fermented and soy-based too. The aubergine is listed as “crispy”, a nicer way of saying deep-fried, and came in a sort of smooth fish and chip batter with more treats at the bottom of the plate, including a silky, moreish, slightly tangy tofu cream which pops up in a few places on the menu.
Need a post-show cocktail?
Truth or Dare Bar – 6-minute walk
Somm Wine Bar & Bistro – 8-minute walk
Little Culprit – 10-minute walk
Soul Bar & Bistro – 7-minute walk
Kemuri Hi-Fi – 4-minute walk
The Night Car - 6-minute walk
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