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