TAWA5 Best Suburban Destination

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

• Web­site
• Twit­ter
• Face­book
• Foursquare

Time Cinema in Lyall Bay

Did 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

• Web­site
• Foursquare

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

• Foursquare

Jackson Street, Petone

It’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

• Web­site
• Twit­ter

TheNewDowse

We’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

• Web­site
• Twit­ter
• Face­book
• Foursquare