The best of
Wellington. Ranked.

The Cuba Street fine-dining institution, in a 1920s banking chamber with the marble columns still in place — the room alone is worth the booking.

Local tip: Friday lunch is the way in if dinner is booked out — same kitchen, same room, easier table.

Kent Terrace bistro with handmade pasta and one of the best wine programmes in the city — two hats at the 2025 Cuisine Good Food Awards.

Local tip: Weekday lunch is the quiet time; dinner books out well ahead.

Tiny Aro Valley set-menu restaurant — no choices, two staggered sittings a night, every detail considered. One of the hardest tables in the country to get.

Local tip: Book well ahead. There are two staggered sittings a night and dessert is deliberately kept a surprise.

Mount Victoria seafood favourite — market fish, a wine list deep enough to spend an evening on, and walls covered in fish prints and portraits.

Local tip: Order the grouper, or the snapper ceviche if it is on.

Wood-fire and live coals in the Huddart Parker Building on Post Office Square — bone marrow, dry-aged steak and a great-value set lunch.

Local tip: Dinner is walk-in only — it takes no evening reservations, so go early or expect to wait.

Cuba Street restaurant and wine bar built around a charcoal oven, with fresh oysters at the front of the menu.

Local tip: It takes both bookings and walk-ins, which makes it a useful fallback when the rest of Cuba Street is full.

Wakefield Street European eatery — caraway sourdough, schnitzel, and the sort of cooking that does not chase trends.

Local tip: The smoked fish kedgeree at weekend brunch is the order.

Courtenay Place modern South-East-Asian dining and cocktail bar — share plates in a rustic timber room that stays open later than most.

Local tip: Order the red duck curry. Closed Sundays.

Mount Victoria tasting-menu restaurant — a small, chef-led room doing one set progression a night.

Local tip: Closed Sunday and Monday — and it is a tasting menu only, so go hungry and leave the evening free.

The big waterfront seafood room in a restored 1880s woolshed on Queens Wharf — open all day, every day.

Local tip: Order the seafood risotto or the seared tuna. Open seven days, which is rare at this end of the market.

Venetian bacaro-style Italian on Cuba Street — small sharing plates, standing room at the bar, and the closest thing Wellington has to a Venice back street.

Local tip: Built for grazing and a drink rather than a long sit-down dinner — good before a show.

Turkish-Levantine mezze on Cuba Street — a menu built for the table rather than the individual.

Local tip: The salmon kibbeh nayeh with pita is the dish people come back for.

Customhouse Quay fine dining built on organic produce and ethically raised meat, opened by the team behind the old Whitebait restaurant.

Local tip: This is where the Whitebait kitchen went after that restaurant closed in 2019.

Queens Wharf seafood and grill with the harbour immediately outside the windows — a Wellington lunch standard for decades.

Local tip: Order the grilled scallops. It opens at 11am at weekends, earlier than most of the wharf.