Our advice for Wellington on a Plate 2015

Tomor­row begins that most magic­al time of the year. The stu­pid film fest­iv­al has released my friends from its evil clutches and it’s time to eat, eat, eat. We’ve been cov­er­ing Wel­ling­ton on a Plate for a  long time now and I think we’re get­ting pretty good at know­ing what’s what. So here’s our thoughts. […]

The Third Eye + Boar & Blade + Mojo = The Vanuatu Fundraiser

UPDATE: Due to that dast­ardly weath­er caus­ing hav­oc across Wel­ling­ton today the Beer & Blade Vanuatu Fun­draiser has been post­poned until tomor­row night, Fri­day, 15 May. You may recall, amidst all the atro­cit­ies that occur on a far too reg­u­lar basis through­out the world, that in mid-March Vanuatu was hit by Cyc­lone Pam. The cyc­lone killed over 10 […]

Make a meal in May for Kaibosh

Last week we went to Kaibosh’s launch of their fun­draiser Make A Meal in May, and frankly it’s an amaz­ing idea for an amaz­ing cause, and you should do it, please and thank you. Oh, you want more explan­a­tion than that? Okay, the idea is that you get your friends/acquaintances togeth­er, make a meal at […]

Dan at the head of the FishHead

How time flies! Five years since we hit the launch party, Fish­Head magazine is going from strength to strength, no doubt because they’ve been smart enough to soli­cit a bunch of Wel­ling­tonista con­trib­ut­ors (I wrote in the very first issue, cur­rent ‘istas Tom Beard and Tom Goulter and gone fish­in’ Hadyn Green are all reg­u­lar colum­nists). […]

Eye opening

While Our Tim got to take a sneak peek at Tuatar­a’s new Te Aro brew­ery and bar before it opened, I had the oner­ous task of drink­ing free beer rep­res­ent­ing The Wel­ling­tonista at the offi­cial open­ing func­tion. It was a suit­ably illus­tri­ous crowd, packed with the doyen(ne)s of Wel­ling­ton’s craft beer com­munity, includ­ing the LBQ […]

Win a VIP double pass to the Wellington Wine and Food Festival

Wel­ling­ton is a city over­flow­ing with good res­taur­ants and fine drops to drink. It seems ridicu­lous that we haven’t had our own day-of-food-and-wine-and-oh-okay-fine-beer yet. Luck­ily, that’s about to change with the cun­ningly named Wel­ling­ton Food and Wine Fest­iv­al. The Fest­iv­al brings togeth­er the best of loc­al food, wine, bever­ages and res­taur­ants, out­doors on the water­front […]

Something fishy in Thorndon

Thorndon has a long his­tory with greasies, includ­ing Dav­id Lange’s fish & chips bri­gade in 1980. I remem­ber buy­ing fish’n chips from that same store (where Cel­lar­vate is now, I believe) and eat­ing them on Par­lia­ment’s lawn after a big leg­al­ise can­nabis protest in high school (so I guess 1996?). Sadly that fish & chips […]

I spy with my little eye

With a large num­ber of the Tuatara brew­ery staff being based in Wel­ling­ton it does make sense for Tuatara to start some­thing more cent­rally so that at least not every­one has to spend a couple of hours every­day driv­ing to Kapiti. Think of the beer that could be brewed in that time! And there will be […]

Ortega Fish Shack’s Davey McDonald

This guest piece from Alex­an­der Bis­ley Dav­ey McDon­ald, the affable 29-year-old fath­er of two young kids, man­ages/co-owns Ortega Fish Shack and Bar. At the 2014 Cap­it­al Awards— the Wel­ling­ton region’s premi­er hos­pit­al­ity awards, voted by the industry— McDon­ald won Out­stand­ing Maitre’d of the Year, and Ortega won Best Front of House Team. Ortega was 2014 Run­­n­er-up […]

The TGIF wander

Last Fri­day’s TGIF wander reminded me of some of the char­ac­ter­ful, fun and tasty small ven­ues we have around the city (in this case the Cour­tenay quarter). Firstly a ‘You Sexy Thing’ mock­tail at Vinyl bar.  A creamy chai and car­a­mel cre­ation which hit the spot nicely on a warm sum­mer­’s even­ing. There’s some­thing about […]