The sub­urbs. Love them or loathe them, they sur­round every city. And loath­ing the sub­urbs out of some sort of twis­ted inner-city-cent­ric impulse is pretty short-sighted – espe­cially when you could be enjoy­ing the fol­low­ing:

Monterey Bar

Who knew that drink­ing in New­town did­n’t have to involve sports? The good people of Kreuzberg Cafe opened up this joint in small former Viet­namese res­taur­ant, and it’s worth leav­ing the city for. The mac’n cheese is amaaaaz­ing (although off the menu for sum­mer, grrr), Tuatara beer is on tap, and they make fab­ulous cock­tails and three kinds of pie every day. If you’re the type who needs enter­tain­ment while you eat or drink, there’s old type­writers for you to com­pose the great Kiwi nov­el on, stacks of boardgames, and all the tables are covered in paper you’re encour­aged to draw on – with the best draw­ing being pos­ted on the Monterey Paper Trail Blog. Monterey’s a home away from home, so we must warn you: be pre­pared to stay for a long long time if you vis­it.

Monterey New­town: 4 Rintoul St, New­town

Time Cinema in Lyall Bay

We See YouDid you know there was a shrine to the golden age of movie-mak­ing tucked away in the back streets of Lyall Bay? We’re guess­ing you did­n’t. You won’t see James Camer­on, Steven Spiel­berg, or Michael Bay movies in this cozy 40-seat cinema (though we hear an excep­tion was made for one P. Jack­son) but you will find reg­u­lar screen­ings of vin­tage films, old news­reels, and any­thing else that takes the fancy of John, the pro­jec­tion­ist and cur­at­or. John is liv­ing the film buff’s dream—and he’ll be delighted to put togeth­er a cus­tom pro­gramme for you and your friends if you have some­thing spe­cial in mind. But be warned–you may nev­er make it past the lobby, which is an Alad­din’s Cave of film-mak­ing gear all the way back to the earli­est days of the art.

Time Cinema: 191 Suth­er­land Rd, Lyall Bay

Chocolate Fish at Shelley Bay

After leav­ing Scorch­ing Bay, Hob­bit favour­ite cafe Chocol­ate Fish ended up mov­ing around the Miramar Pen­in­sula to Shelly Bay. Now run­ning out of the old Sub­mar­ine Min­ing Depot Bar­racks and with a min­im­al kit­chen, the Choc serves up bar­be­cue sea­food, as well as more tra­di­tion­al cafe fare. On a sunny day, the lawn in front of the build­ing gets full of diners hap­pily enjoy­ing their bunch. And with the neigh­bour­ing former Navy build­ings filling up with arty ten­ants, Shelly Bay is turn­ing into a per­fect week­end des­tin­a­tion.

Chocol­ate Fish: Shel­ley Bay Rd

Jackson Street, Petone

Jackson street my old viewIt’s flat­ter and straight­er than any street in Wel­ling­ton has a right to be, but over the last few years Petone’s main drag has become the heart of a sub­urb­an renais­sance. Take the train or the ferry out and make an after­noon of it, spend­ing your time and money on the craft cheese and food­ie treats at Cul­tured, the many kinds of deli­cious­ness at the Dutch Shop, the array of intriguing and exot­ic fare at the South Afric­an shop (and always a friendly smile and an offer of a free espresso) and the design‑y delights of Wanda Har­land. Or just sit down at one of the numer­ous cafes and enjoy cof­fee that’s just as good as any in the CBD, at notice­ably non-CBD prices.

Jack­son St, Petone

TheNewDowse

New Dowse quoteWe’ve nev­er really under­stood why they insist on being called The­New­Dowse; they’ll always be The Dowse to us, home of one of the greatest archives of object art in New Zea­l­and and some won­der­ful exhib­i­tions and events. This year alone you could admire the scupltures of shape­shifter, take a bus tour of mod­ern­ist Lower Hutt as part of Long Live The Mod­ern, or watch It’s A Tree grow out­side the gallery—to the delight of the craft fans who reg­u­larly con­verge on the Dowse for Craft 2.0, which Wel­ling­tonista Sue may organ­ise but the Dowse has nur­tured from the start. Just recently, as part of Fuzz, Felt, and Fur, your kids could get some qual­ity hands-on time with the dif­fer­ent tex­tures of tapa cloth, sat­in, felt and harakeke while you admired the tex­tile-based art from their col­lec­tion. If you’re kick­ing your­self for hav­ing slept through all that you should make a point of not miss­ing the 2011 crop, fea­tur­ing Billy Apple, Kiwi fantasy and sci­ence fic­tion artists, and we can only ima­gine what else.

The New Dowse: 45 Laings Rd, Lower Hutt