Food, what is it that makes this topic so challenging for me? I mean, I am pretty experienced at eating and here I am sharing the best eats in Auckland. So, there’s no reason that the activity of lunch, dinner, or elevenses (still thinking about Hobbiton) should ever present a problem for the seasoned eater like myself.
And yet when I am asked, “What do you want for dinner?” I immediately panic because I never have the answer. I go through all of the usual answers in my head. Pizza. Pasta. Mexican. Thai. Breakfast. A smoothie. Something creative with cauliflower. Aahhhh! All to circle around to my wired response, “Doesn’t matter, whatever you’d like.”
How can I, as an expert diner, find that question so hard? Well, I’ll tell you.
Eating to me is about sustenance. I don’t set out on a wild crusade to find the best eats. I simply want to something that won’t be horrible and move on with my day. Most meals are unmemorable and take place to keep me alive. There are however those instances where a meal or environmental encounter leave me in a trance. Most of these situations play back in my mind on repeat and leave a satisfied patron craving more.
All of this said, here are the places that reached well above my standards and made my list of the best eats in Auckland.
The Best Eats in Auckland
Duck Island Ice Cream
Yeah, I am leading off with a dessert. Seems appropriate to me. I start here because of the apparent New Zealand staple feijoas. Feijoas are a fruit native to South America and are also grown all over NZ. The long and short of it is you love them or hate them. I fall into the latter group because to me they have an initial sweaty sock flavor to them.
That is why this ice cream joint made my list as a must try. They have somehow mastered a way to take a once unpalatable provision and turn it a sweet treat so enslaving you won’t be able to escape it’s grip. In Ponsonby? Swing by for a scoop of the Coconut Feijoa or one of the many other incredible flavors.
Ponsonby Central
OK, so this is a collection of eateries. It makes the list simply because it has that cool, Brooklyn style with a variety of dining spaces sure to accommodate any type of appetite. Being giant fans of arepas and seeing as we haven’t had them in a long time, we chose to try Olas Arepas. That was the best decision of the day.
They have quite the collection of different ingredients for their offerings and hit a note with me that I haven’t encountered since Dekalb Market Hall back in N.Y.
Shucker Brothers
This is a great place to head if you want to sit out by the water, do some people-watching and enjoy a scrumptious snack. It’s all about location for this place.
We had a glass of Pinot Gris here to accompany our cauliflower & manchego croquettes. Yeah, those sound good to you, don’t they? Well they are. And what’s more, they come with the green goddess sauce; a flurry of flavors that is guaranteed to set your tastebuds off.
Farina
Up in Ponsonby, there is a restaurant that truly delivers. A dining facility that hits on all marks: food quality, service, environment. A place where you go in for a small snack and stay for multiple courses. That place is Farina.
The two of us aren’t known to go through multiple stages of a meal. Doing multiple courses just seems a little too excessive in a world where some people starve. However, Farina just demanded that we stay. With each new dish that was put in front of us we were again called to wonder how it was that we wanted to keep eating. I won’t get into specifics on our meal as it is a memory I like to keep just for me. What I need to stress is that you should go here if you like the full experience in a meal. It’s also worth noting it is listed as “one of the 50 best pizzas in the world.” You won’t be disappointed.
Final Thoughts on the Best Eats in Auckland
There you have it. A few suggestions on the best eats in Auckland from the guy who refuses to make suggestions. I wouldn’t tell the internet about them if I weren’t completely confident that readers would enjoy each of these places.
Oh, one last thought. Vogels. We hadn’t even heard of this luscious loaf until we got to our last AirBnB in Auckland. That is a shame. Truly a shame. We ate this bread every morning with jam during our last stay and it was too bad that we didn’t know about it sooner as we missed out for the 5 prior weeks. I am telling you about it here so you don’t make the same mistake. Buy a loaf of Vogels toast for your morning meals and you won’t regret it.
Happy eating!
