Vot­ing in the Fourth Annu­al Welling­ton­ista Awards is open from Decem­ber 1–15. Then come find out the results at our Awards Night at Mighty Mighty on Decem­ber 17!

To vote, vis­it this page.

For drinks after work, any­where with a liquor licence will do But then there’s Drinks Late At Night (with cap­i­tals), which is a whole ‘nother thing. Late-night venues are where you go when you’re hop­ing for mis­chief and mer­ri­ment, when you want to keep drink­ing to avoid the hang­over, or if you’re just hav­ing too much fun to stop. If the staff at these venues could talk, what sto­ries they could tell…

The Hawthorn Lounge: It’s late in the evening and you’re look­ing for a cozy den where the drinks are good, the music is jazz and tables have green baize. On Tory Street there’s a black door under an awning adver­tis­ing a famous cham­pagne. Those in the know saunter up and into Welling­ton’s best speakeasy. Best Late Night venue? The Hawthorn Lounge can only real­ly be expe­ri­enced when the sun (and the after-work­ers) has dis­ap­peared.

The Watusi: We asked for a tiki bar and we pret­ty much got one. The Watusi is filled late into the depths of the evening with the sug­ary scent of rum and the rolling waves of surf gui­tar. The only thing miss­ing is the trop­i­cal heat and sand.

Mighty Mighty by KowhaiMighty Mighty: Self-con­scious­ly kitsch décor? Check. Bar staff with atti­tude? Check. Mind-bend­ing­ly weird music and arty per­for­mances? Bin­go! If we did­n’t love it so much, the Mighty would be a hip­ster cliché … but we do love it, because its heart is in the right place, and because some of our wildest, loud­est, messi­est and just plain fun nights have end­ed up on these bat­tered old floor­boards. 

Hooch: It has a touch of Hawthorn’s relaxed ele­gance, but with a raunchy twist and a pirat­i­cal gleam in its good eye. It’s always worth fight­ing the Courte­nay hordes for its cock­tails and charm, but you should keep a spe­cial look out for its debauched “Min­sky” theme par­ties — named after the noto­ri­ous New York bur­lesque club — if you like to dress well yet behave bad­ly.

Photo by Deb SideslingerMid­night Espres­so: Loathe as some of us are to nom­i­nate an unli­censed cafe in this cat­e­go­ry, we can’t go past the fact that Mid­night is the ulti­mate late-night hang­out. The Dori­an Grey of cafes seems utter­ly untouched by the last two decades, and keeps on serv­ing cakes, nachos and cof­fee to new gen­er­a­tions of freaks, hip­pies, musos, drunk­ards and any­one who finds them­selves out way, way past their bed­time.