It prob­a­bly would­n’t be an unfair call to say that the Welling­ton­ista focus­es most of its atten­tions on the inner city, despite the fact that some of us live out in the wilds, like Hataitai, Karori and Petone. But that does­n’t mean we’re not aware that there are many awe­some things going on out­side of Te Aro, and so this cat­e­go­ry is all about pay­ing trib­ute to them.

Good things hap­pen in the sub­urbs too, hon­est – like this place:

Places after the jump…

A. Elements – Lyall Bay

While last year’s sub­ur­ban win­ner, the Maranui Surf Cafe is con­stant­ly over­flow­ing with peo­ple queu­ing down the stairs, and the ser­vice is rushed, there’s a place three min­utes away from the beach where you’re pret­ty cer­tain to get a table, great ser­vice and deli­cious food. You’ll be able to spread out a news­pa­per (which they always have plen­ty of copies of), drink the good cof­fee and try to decide if you feel like toast­ed coconut bread with marscapone or per­haps bub­ble’n squeak for lunch.

As an added rare bonus, they’re BYO as well as licensed, which makes for a good din­ner (but you’ll need to book), and also offer cook­ing class­es. It’s no won­der that at least two Welling­ton­istas are very very fre­quent vis­i­tors.

B. TheNewDowse – The Hutt

The­New­Dowse opened its doors in Feb­ru­ary this year, with a pret­ty stonk­ing­ly good month-long par­ty begin­ning with Hol­lie Smith and end­ing with Craft2.0. Since open­ing they’ve brought some stun­ning exhi­bi­tions to Welling­ton, like The Droog, Becom­ing King Kong which took us behind the scenes at Weta Work­shop and cur­rent­ly Philip Trea­cy’s Hats for Isabel­la Blow (an exhi­bi­tion of hats that are beyond belief). With great art comes great food and drink at Reka Cafe, which helps ease the ear­ly morn­ing pain of set­ting up for Craft2.0. Final­ly, The­New­Dowse is spe­cial because you can catch the bus ser­vice from Welling­ton to The­New­Dowse with­out real­ly set­ting foot in The Hutt at all!

C. Mediterranean Food Warehouse – Newtown

One of the Welling­ton­ista’s favourite things to do on a week­end is to head over to New­town to spend a leisure­ly cou­ple of hours at the Mediter­ranean Food Ware­house. Order a cou­ple of wood­fired piz­zas and cof­fees while you read the papers.

Take a stroll around the ware­house, stock­ing up on spices, pas­tas, jarred good­ies, import­ed baked goods and fresh cheeses. Raise your eye­brows at their selec­tion of spir­its, includ­ing arti­choke liqueur (appar­ent­ly it tastes nas­ti­er than death, so don’t buy a bot­tle — if you absolute­ly must sam­ple it, you can do so at Sco­pa), and snarfle free sam­ples of tasty things. Then you should be digest­ed enough for their fan­tas­tic gelati. Mmm­m­mm! If they had bed­rooms, we’d nev­er leave.

WINNER!!!
D. Karori Wildlife Sanctuary – Karori

What can you say about a place that has too many tuis (And for once we don’t mean beer)? The Karori Wildlife Sanc­tu­ary is one of those super-cool ideas that actu­al­ly got some trac­tion, some mon­ey and then kudos (which in turn led to more mon­ey).

A Sun­day stroll through the Sanc­tu­ary can net you sight­ings of rare Robins, endan­gered ducks, nest­ing shags, and (one of our favourites) a cheeky weka. but they don’t just do birds. No! They have endan­gered native fish, lizards and bats (appar­ent­ly). And all of this wildlife is a five minute dri­ve from the CBD! Nor­mal­ly our response to bigass fences that stretch for miles and miles is to say “You know who ELSE put up fences? The Nazis Com­mu­nists!” but when you come across a tui feast­ing on Molesworth Street, and hear extra bird calls in all the sur­round­ing sub­urbs, you know that it’s not just Karori that’s reap­ing the ben­e­fits of this mag­i­cal place.

E. Scorching Bay

Sure, you could go to Ori­en­tal Bay’s new(ish) beach. But on most nice days it’s a bit much of a ruck get­ting in there — and maybe town is just a lit­tle too close. So it’s at this point that Scorch­ing Bay comes to mind: beau­ti­ful sandy beach; few­er peo­ple; and a fan­tas­tic cafe (Choco­late Fish — if you’re quick) just a short walk out of the water away.

View the best of the sub­urbs on Zoomin, using the ‘best­sub­ur­ban’ tag.