It’s Restaurant Month in Auckland and the theme is Eat Odd. Simon Wilson, a more than occasional odd eater himself, identifies a favourite top ten food experiences you might not have tried. Thai, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Korean, Turkish, Cajun. High-end dining: Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Lebanese, Spanish, Maori. Unusual fish. Truffles. The best of the best: that … Read more
Books editor Steve Braunias and Auckland editor Simon Wilson debate the merits of the book cover just named New Zealand’s best of the year. Steve Braunias: People say New Zealand literature is short of laughs but the Publishers Association of New Zealand (PANZ!) book design awards are reliably LOL. Oh hang on they’re not joking. Year after … Read more
The ad says: “Born May 2013 at The Blue Breeze Inn – shamelessly copied ever since.” But it’s not true. Julian Liew-Young wonders why a restaurant would make such a demonstrably false claim. The pork buns at Ponsonby “tiki bar” The Blue Breeze Inn are famous, and fair enough. They taste great. They won the … Read more
Indian restaurant Paradise is a phenomenon – three huge branches on the same small city block. Yet its biggest competitor is run by a co-founder, finds Duncan Greive, and their breakup has fuelled one of Auckland’s most intense food rivalries. “They paved a parking lot and put up a Paradise,” a Sandringham friend told me a while ago. He had introduced … Read more
Now more than ever, says Simon Wilson, critics are good for restaurants and good for their customers too. The real problem in media coverage is the exact opposite: it’s uncritical feel-goodism and the lack of critics. Everyone’s a critic. It’s always been true about restaurants, because we all eat so we all know what we … Read more
A chef from “the best restaurant in the world” has taken charge at Clooney in Freeman’s Bay. Good news? Some of the local critics have raved, but, surprisingly, not all of them. So how good is this Jacob Kear really? And how good has he made the restaurant, and how much would you pay anyway? … Read more
Israeli-born Yael Shochat is the owner of much-loved Fort St institution Ima Cuisine. She writes about the essential role immigration plays in her restaurant – and why the Labour leader’s vow to slash immigrant numbers by ‘tens of thousands’ has her deeply worried. Two years ago, after 17 years living here, I received my New … Read more