Family-owned Naumi Hotels open Naumi Studio Hotel on Cuba Street

There’s been a hotel on Cuba Street for as long as I can remem­ber.  In sixth form my very dar­ing sex-hav­ing friend booked her­self and her boyfriend a room at Trekkers Hotel for after our ball at Cuba Cuba (but she end­ed up get­ting too drunk to leave the room).  In the mid naugh­ties, we […]

Graze at the Portlander

A cou­ple of weeks ago I was invit­ed by the love­ly peo­ple at the Port­lander to head in one freez­ing evening, along with a num­ber of Insta­gram­mers, to feast on their new graz­ing con­cept. From our sig­na­ture long bone OP rib-eye pre­sent­ed at your table, to our on the bone grass fed Sir­loin dry aged in house […]

WOAP 17: Concrete, Glasshouse, Hillside

How are we all going with Welling­ton on a Plate then? As we tweet­ed today, there’s no less than three alter­na­tives to the offi­cial site in order to help you nav­i­gate your way to a burg­er (One, two, three). Maybe they’ll be incor­po­rat­ed next year? In the mean­time, here’s what I’ve been eat­ing Lock Stock […]

Parking ourselves at the Park Hotel (and a giveaway)

About a month ago, we attend­ed the open­ing of the Park Hotel where we ate amaz­ing canapes from Ster­ling (which we have raved about before), and heard new­ly crowned may­or Justin Lester say that Welling­ton needs 1000 new hotel rooms to sus­tain growth (the Park Hotel has 137, fyi). We had a thor­ough­ly excel­lent time, […]

A room with a (typically Wellington) view.

A night at the Bolton Hotel

Back in August, our edi­tor Jo attend­ed the Bolton Hotel’s Welling­ton on a Plate event and enjoyed it might­i­ly. In the ensu­ing inter­play on Twit­ter, the Hotel invit­ed one of us to stay the night so that we could expe­ri­ence their hos­pi­tal­i­ty more ful­ly. I quick­ly took up the offer on the behalf of the […]

Welly on a Plate 2016: it begins

So Welling­ton on a Plate has been going for four days now, and I have three things to report back on so far. Good on me, let’s see if I can keep this pace up (I won’t be able to). The Suite Life at the Bolton Hotel Tapas and wine Dine Welling­ton menu at Ster­ling […]

Fancy times at a fancy hotel

Welling­ton does not have a lot of very big big hotels. I believe the Rydges has the most gue­strooms (at 280), and the may­or was mis­quot­ed in the Domin­ion Post as say­ing Welling­ton has no five star hotels — a fact the Bolton and the Muse­um Art Hotel would prob­a­bly take umbrage with. In fact, […]

A club that would have us as a member

Every­one has dif­fer­ent rea­sons for being in the Welling­ton­ista, and one of mine is that it means I get invi­ta­tions from love­ly peo­ple to do cool things. That’s all very well and good, but it could be a lit­tle alien­at­ing for you guys. So today, I’m going to tell you about a secret spe­cial club […]

Any Portlander in a storm — a night at the Rydges

Ages ago we saw an ad in the paper for The Port­lander at Rydges Welling­ton  in the paper, and after look­ing at pic­tures of their burg­ers, we head­ed along there for lunch. The lamb burg­er was slow-cooked in duck fat, and it was deli­cious, crispy bits spilling out every­where. The onion rings were heav­en too, sec­ond only to […]

More WOAP: the bland, the sublime and the curious

As I said before, I’m work­ing my way around the lunchtime Dine menus of places near my work. Here’s what I’ve got to report. 1. Vivant 2. Lit­tle Beer Quar­ter 3. Ti Kou­ka Cafe 4. Finc