TAWA5 Best Café

Not to be con­fused with “Best Cof­fee”. This cat­e­go­ry is about the sort of place you go for brunch on a Sun­day morn­ing. Good cof­fee is impor­tant, but so is good food.

Meow

Hid­den away down Edward Street, Meow does great brunch­es (the gin­ger­bread pan­cakes are a fave), with a large din­ing area suit­able for groups or space to read the week­end paper. Meow is devel­op­ing into a fine venue for low key gigs from great bands. Also much loved for their approach to gluten free food.

Meow Cafe: 9 Edward Street

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Baobab Cafe

This cafe is so New­town it’s almost ridicu­lous. For read­ing mate­r­i­al you’ll find _Adbusters_ dis­played in flax kete, and on the counter you’ll find CDs for sale in sup­port of the local pri­ma­ry school. Even if that’s not your type of thing, the food prob­a­bly is. There’s a wide selec­tion of bak­ing, includ­ing gluten-free treats, and the pis­ta­chio pan­cakes are to die for, even if they take a mys­te­ri­ous­ly long time to be cooked. The menu changes fre­quent­ly accord­ing to what’s in sea­son, so you might not always be able to get grilled stone fruit or a rhubarb smooth­ie, but you are guar­an­teed some­thing deli­cious nev­er­the­less.

Baobab Cafe: 152 Rid­di­ford St, New­town

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Sweet Mother’s Kitchen

From ear­ly morn­ing break­fast through to late-night noms, Sweet Moth­er’s is a ver­sa­tile and pop­u­lar joint. Its soul food/­Tex-Mex inspired menu is a refresh­ing change from reg­u­lar cafe fare, and it’s often the first port of call for out-of-town vis­i­tors. Oh, and one more thing: curly fries.

Sweet Moth­er’s Kitchen: 5 Courte­nay Place

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Maranui

A huge com­mu­ni­ty effort saved the fire-dam­aged cafe from demo­li­tion, and the Lyall Bay com­mu­ni­ty has been reward­ed with a love­ly local cafe. The ser­vice might be slow at peak times, but you can enjoy the spec­tac­u­lar ocean views while you wait.

Maranui Cafe: 7a Lyall Parade, Lyall Bay

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Kiallas

Anoth­er New­town favourite, Kial­las’ menu includes both stan­dard Pake­ha cafe fare and Greek spe­cial­i­ties. We like the pan­cakes with rhubarb com­pot, the halou­mi and the meze plat­ter. And we also dig how they won’t laugh at you if order bacon with your veg­e­tar­i­an break­fast. The cof­fee, beans from Peo­ples, is good and strong.

Kial­las Café: 176 Rid­di­ford St, New­town

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