In November I was lucky enough to head across the ditch to Auckland for the weekend. My sister was there for a work conference and convinced me (very easily) to come over and spend the weekend with her. Then her husband decided to also come and then my bestie, Zoe, also decided to she muse well pop over to, so in the end we had quite the party! Thanks to Brendan for staying home and being with Archer, seriously such a good dad and husband.
As most of my travel adventures go the weekend mostly revolved around food. We managed to fit in A LOT of food, in a short amount of time, so I have rounded up my favourites below.
Pasture was Zoe and my first stop. It was an amazing start to our time in Auckland. Pasture does two sittings each night – with only six people at each! We went to the later seating and were treated to 14 courses of beautiful New Zealand produce. Each course is lovingly prepared by the Chef and sous Chef right in front of you, you can ask questions and chat to them. It is just such a unique, well thought out experience. And best of all you leave the night with a loaf of their homemade sourdough.
Visiting Waiheke Island was a must on our list. So Saturday morning we jumped on the ferry to head to Mudbrick Restaurant. On Waiheke Island there are vineyards everywhere you look, my kind of place. We treated ourselves to a five course degustation at Mudbrick with matching wines. The food was good but the wine was really, really good.I was instantly kicking myself for only having carry on luggage.
If you weren’t looking for this bar you would probably walk straight past it. There are only a few seats at the bar. We stopped for a cocktail before dinner and the staff were lovely, and took a lot of time and effort to ensure everyone got a drink they would love.
A cute little coffee stop as we shopped on Ponsonby Road (has lots of cute little boutiques), the cakes here looked delicious but we were too full from breakfast to fit one in.
There is lots of mexican restaurants in Auckland. Mexico is a chain store but the food was pretty delicious and it was an easy stop for when we wanted something quick and light for dinner after our lunch at Mudbrick.
We spotted this place when we were on our way to the ferry and seeing the line knew we had to stop back. This was later confirmed by our taxi driver who told us the owener Ana had been the runner up on the 2012 Masterchef. We definitely weren’t disappointed for returning, beautiful, creamy gelato in a variety of flavours!
This was probably my favourite meal of the trip. I recommend a glass of New Zealand Chardonnay a dozen beautiful fresh oysters, shucked in front of you at the bar and then the best fish and chips I have ever had, seriously, the fish tasted so fresh and the chips were seasoned to perfection, oh my gosh I want it now.
Giapo is not just ice cream it is an experience. The ice cream creations they make are out of this world, selfie frames, ice cream finger puppets and chocolate octopus legs. They also really encourage you to try lots of different flavours so that you get an ice cream you will really enjoy. I stuck to two simple two scoops and they were scrumptious so don’t worry that its all just for social media, the ice cream is really good.
A good burger is always on my list when visiting a new city and ‘Burger, burger’ did not disappoint. They also provide lots of options for people with dietary requirements.
We finished our 48 hour foodie adventure with breakfast at Chuffed. I couldnt go past the poached pear pikelets, holy moly they are sweet, but worth every bite. A perfectly sweet note to end our weekend on.
Feel free to contact me if you have any questions, I am always happy to talk food! Oh and here is a photo to show we did some exercise too – highly recommend the very quick walk up Mt Eden for beautiful views of the city.
a DOSE OF THE GOOD LIFE 