What to Eat in Auckland: The Dishes Worth Crossing Town For
What to eat in Auckland is best answered dish by dish, not restaurant by restaurant. The city's strength is range, so the answer runs from Uyghur lamb skewers to hokey pokey gelato, banh mi to birria tacos, each worth crossing town for.
What should you eat in Auckland?
Eat broadly, because Auckland's whole appeal is its range. There is no single signature dish, but there is a long list of standout plates spread across the city's cuisines. Chase the dishes rather than a postcode, and you will eat better than any best-restaurants list will lead you. A few are genuinely worth a special trip across town.
The ones to seek out
A handful stand above the rest for sheer character. The Uyghur-style lamb skewers at Jade Town are cheap and smoky and unlike much else in the city. Giapo turns hokey pokey, New Zealand's honeycomb-toffee flavour, into theatrical gelato in the CBD. The hāngi pie at Blue Rose Café puts a traditional Māori earth-oven flavour into a pie. And the lemongrass pork bánh mì at Mr T's in the south is a benchmark for the price.
Global Auckland on a plate
The city eats from everywhere, and the best plates show it. Birria tacos at Tokos Tacos, a Picanha plate at the Brazilian Tropeiro Grill, char kuey teow at Mama Kopitiam, knafeh at Ima Cuisine, and a Fiji-style BBQ plate at Dundale's all sit within the same city. Auckland's migrant communities are the reason the food is this varied, and eating across them is the point.
How to plan your eating
Pick by craving and region, not by ranking. The CBD, the city-fringe and the eastern and southern suburbs each hold their own standouts, so cluster a few dishes in one area for a good food day. Prices run from a few dollars for a snack to a proper sit-down spend, so you can mix a cheap skewer or pie with a longer dinner. Follow the dishes and the map sorts itself out.
Every dish, mapped to the spot
Kai AKL maps Auckland's best dishes to the exact restaurants that make them, hand-picked and sorted by what you feel like. Works offline.
Explore Kai AKL