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 […]