Oceania (Australia, New Zealand & the South Pacific) - High-end restaurants serving New Zealand cuisine in Auckland?

What are some of the leading high-end restaurants serving New Zealand cuisine in Auckland these days? I'm thinking of a very special celebratory meal on the night my friends and I arrive in Auckland, which also happens to be American Thanksgiving. We're staying at the Hyatt. Not necessarily looking for a view (in so many places, great view = bad food and high prices), but really looking for great local cuisine: lamb, venison, that sort of thing.

2007 Restaurant of the Year awards (http://www.metrolive.co.nz/food/2007restaurantawards/tabid/87/Default.aspx) may give you some ideas.

Very useful list. The top restaurant in AKL, according to these critics, looks like just the right kind of place for us. We'll have to book in. And some of the other ones look very good too.

Thanks, as ever, Kiwi.

If you're looking for something formal and ultra smart I'd go with either Antoinne's (Parnell) or the French Cafe (Grafton). Both do great food in a fairly formal atmosphere but you may need to book well in advance (especially for the French Cafe).

For great NZ food in a smart but slightly less formal environment I'd go with The Grove (St Patricks Square in the CBD). Some of the best venison I've ever had!

If you're looking for something formal and ultra smart I'd go with either Antoinne's (Parnell) or the French Cafe (Grafton). Both do great food in a fairly formal atmosphere but you may need to book well in advance (especially for the French Cafe).

For great NZ food in a smart but slightly less formal environment I'd go with The Grove (St Patricks Square in the CBD). Some of the best venison I've ever had!

Thanks for the suggestions. The Grove sounds like a good option for us, and you've given a very strong review. ^ Since it's my first time in NZ and it will be a brief stay, I'm not so much looking for top world cuisine or top French or Cal-French (my favorite cuisine), but great Kiwi cuisine. So while the fine dining option at the Langham looks very good, it probably won't serve my needs for this trip. The Grove, though, sounds spot-on.

Any other reviews or suggestions are welcome.

Rang Auckland last night and booked in to The Grove (http://www.thegroverestaurant.co.nz), with the approval of my traveling companions. Thanks again, splatnz. Menu looks very good and so does the setting.

Absolutely endorse The Grove also. You will not be disappointed. Just a warning - the deugstation is HUGE. I thought it would be tiny portions but it isn't!!

Do not go to the Sky Tower restaurant. It is shocking.

Also you might like to try The French Cafe or the new restaurant at the Westin Hotel. If you're down at the Viaduct then Euro would be my pick. Antoines in Parnell is great but quite formal - you feel like you should be on your best behaviour - but perhaps a few glasses of vino and that'll wear off!!

Not top end but always reliable, great atmosphere and excellent wine list is Vivace in High Street in Auckland City. Sit at the bar and have some tapas and do a wine tasting before eating.

If you want to travel over to Waiheke Island then have lunch at The Mudbrick with a view back across to Auckland City.

Enjoy your dining experience in Auckland. I think our food is up there with some of the best (service can sometimes be hit and miss.) :)

Well, on the recommendation of several folks in this thread and a few other sources, we went to The Grove for American Thanksgiving. Nobody there seemed to notice that it was Thanksgiving. I mean, really! :o Sheezsh. ;)

The entrance to the restaurant is tucked into St. Patrick's Square in the CBD. It stood a chance of being a really charming entrance, but the night we were there, the place next door-- I'll assume it was next door, not part of the restaurant--had a large garage door open and a dumpster planted right on the threshold, with all kinds of debris strewn around the area. Not appetizing at all. :td: :td: If I were the manager of the Grove, I'd have thrown a sh!tfit at my neighbor over that dumpster.

Once inside, there was no maitre d', despite the front area having a rather long walk through a lounge/bar to get to the host/hostess table. The greeting was a little confused: one fellow who greeted us, took our name, and promptly scurried away into the back of the bar. A few minutes later, one of the other servers came over and offered to help us. Eventually, we were seated at our table. There, service improved markedly. One wierd point, which I think is cultural, is that when we finished our dinner rolls, no one came to restock us. Bread plates sat empty for a while. Finally we asked for more. This is not uncommon in the US, but most places at least make an effort to refill bread selections. The server looked at us funny, like: who would want more bread? So he brought us some. And at the end of the meal, it turned up on our bill: $2.50 NZD per extra roll. Hmmmmm... At a place as pricey as this, that's some pretty lame nickel-and-dime'ing. Turns out, most other restaurants we went to charged for all rolls, including the first round, typically with a baguette or garlic roll selection on the menu for about $6 NZD. I guess they just do it that way in NZ.

Our appetizers were really great. I had a tuna. The quality, recipe, and presentation were all excellent. I tasted the enormous quail my non-FT friend ordered and found it very succulent. I had lamb for the main course. It was very tasty, with nice accompaniments and a fine presentation. Nevertheless, I've actually had higher-quality and tastier lamb meat in the US, ironically lamb that came from NZ and had to fly all the way over here. As it turned out, the lamb and venison dishes I had at other places in Auckland were similarly good but not outstanding.

The wine list at The Grove was very impressive. A huge selection of NZ wines, and quite a good selection of some famous French wines, and a smattering of some well-known American wines. We had the 2006 Craggy Range Gimblett's Gravel Vineyard Chardonnay from the Hawke's Bay region. It was really quite good, far less oak and butter than full-malo American chards but not the austere minerality of many white Burgundies and other NZ chards. It had nice, nuanced fruit and was medium bodied. It went well with our appies. For the main, we had Craggy Range's Le Sol shiraz, and that was delicious. Full-bodied and earthy like an Australian shiraz and not too jammy like many American syrahs, it opened up nicely and revealed nice nuance and balance on the mid-palate and a long finish with some tannin but not too much at all, even on a young 2005. We were so impressed that we searched out (not difficult) lots of Craggy Range wine and brought it home. The only glitch on the wine service, apart from rushing my selection at first then not coming back when I said I needed just a few more minutes, was that they charged us twice for the white, a problem easily fixed.

So, there you have it. Fine wine list. Very good to great food. Service that needed a little polish. And a dumpster out front that HAD to go. I would still recommend the place, just encourage diners to be not too fussy about service expectations, as we were--based on warnings in this thread.

Oh yeah. One more thing. The restaurant was HOT. F'ING HOT. We were sweating. Took off our sportcoats and still dripping. That evening was warm in Auckland but not sweltering. Maybe the old building doesn't have a/c.

Thanks for the report MegatopLover. You made some good wine choices :)

NZ doesn't have much aircon.

Thank you, Kiwi. Based on this and our shared affinity for certain wines served in SQ F, looks like we've got some similar tastes in grape juice. ;)

I figured NZ didn't have a lot of aircon, which is why I didn't complain. (Another reason not to complain is Kiwis' reputation as live-and-let-live types for whom fussy behavior, nevermine complaining, is supposedly off-putting.) Just a warning to those who go to warmer aresa in the upcoming summer months.

Oh yeah. One more thing. The restaurant was HOT. F'ING HOT. We were sweating. Took off our sportcoats and still dripping. That evening was warm in Auckland but not sweltering. Maybe the old building doesn't have a/c.

So I found this thread and started drooling at the thought of venison and some Gimlett Gravels juices....

Do I really need a sport coat at The Grove?? I had visions of khaki's and a light sweater for evening wear in the CBD.

As long as were on the subject ( and since I was gonna start a thread about this here) how about some other recommendations in and around Auckland for some Kiwi and pan-Asian food??
We have four nights and are staying at the Westin, walking or a short cab ride for dinners. A bus and some exploring of neighborhoods for lunch.

Thanks all;)