What to eat in New Zealand: A guide to our national dishes (if you can call them that)
One of New Zealand’s most typical foods is best eaten out of a greasy cabinet at petrol stations. But don’t worry, there are lots of other options too.
The British colonisation of New Zealand had many unfortunate consequences. Among which is a legacy of beige, grease-heavy pub food.
Growing up, ‘meat and two veg’ was the standard dinner in our family, with beef, pork or venison from our farm alongside boiled potatoes or steamed cabbage. I went vegetarian at a young age, partially in protest at the glut of meat we ate.
Along with the classic roast beef and potatoes, fish and chips were and still are a staple New Zealand food (although barely — what was once a cheap meal wrapped in greasy newspaper, eaten at the beach alongside hoards of opportunistic seagulls, is becoming more expensive. And, unfortunately, fish stocks are dwindling. Snapper, one of the most popular fish to throw in with chips, is in a very, very bad way.)
We have miles and miles of coastline in New Zealand. Ever since Maori people paddled to our shores, kai moana or seafood has been an important part of our food culture.
And dating culture. As any New Zealand woman will tell you, men are particularly fond of presenting dead fish in photos. Size matters, apparently.
Fishing as a means of attracting a mate doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, but as a country, we’re slowly moving out from under the colonial legacy and defining our own unique food culture.
Maori and Pacific Island chefs are playing a large role in this; in Auckland, you’ll see hangi and fry bread on menus at fancy restaurants.
And there’s a lot more pride too in the quality of our produce.
Whenever I’m away from New Zealand, I miss our avocados. Plump, rich, green avos that are abundant in summer — my grandfather used to collect wheelbarrows full from the tree in his garden.
This kind of bounty is typical for New Zealand food. You almost never need cash here, expect for little road side stalls where people sell the extra produce from their gardens.
And in restaurants, you can expect to eat things like wild-shot deer, oysters pulled from the sea earlier that day, and fruit gathered from sunny orchards around the country.
This is what’s at the heart of New Zealand food culture; simple things, well done.
It’s not all fresh fruit and innovative cuisine, though. New Zealanders also love fast food. We have problems with obesity and you’ll recognise all the familiar fast food joints crowding out local restaurants in even the smallest towns.
It is a point of amazement and shame to me that in Taupo, a pretty lakeside town, most of the restaurants lining the lakefront are fast food — McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC, Burger Fuel, and Subway all have pride of place right by the water.
So, sometimes you have to hunt around for good food. And choices in small towns are limited, especially if you like to eat healthier food. But, in centres like Auckland, Christchurch, and Queenstown, you’ll be spoiled for choice.
And when all else fails, you can always just stop at a petrol station for a pie.
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My tips for foodies
If you’re looking for the most unique food experiences in New Zealand, check out either Te Puia’s hangi experience or the supper club at Hapuku Kitchen.
New Zealand’s cafes are really good, often with a menu and what we call ‘cabinet food’ with sandwiches, cakes, and scones. Don’t overlook the cakes on offer, with New Zealand classics like ginger crunch.
If you love food, or you have someone at home who likes cooking, the Edmonds New Zealand Cookbook makes a great souvenir to buy, with lots of classic New Zealand recipes.
Eating out in New Zealand can get expensive, so try First Table as a way of dining in great restaurants for less.
Must-try New Zealand foods and where you can find them
These are the classic dishes of New Zealand — although I’m not totally sure a pie counts as a dish.
We don’t have a single national dish as such, the foods we take the most pride in are often sugary snacks and drinks (pineapple lumps and L&P) or read like more of a list of ingredients than a single dish; kumara, honey, paua, lamb.
So, I’m using the term ‘traditional New Zealand dish’ fairly loosely here. It might help to think of New Zealand flavours, or even more simply, just epic things you can eat in New Zealand.
Let’s start with the humble pie
A pie is one of New Zealand’s most popular foods.
You might know pies as sweet, but for us they are a single serve savoury packet of pastry and filling, about the size of your hand and always served hot.
It’s the everyperson’s food, the kind of thing you can eat at 10am or 3pm equally, it’s a snack and a meal in itself. Pies are filling and comforting and taste like New Zealand.
Purists will tell you that pies should feature some kind of meat — steak and cheese and mince and cheese are the most popular options. These are the same kind of people who like to pair pies with V energy drinks.
But, as a vegetarian, I can assure you that pies have kept up with the times. Vegetarian and vegan pies abound, particularly in the most reliable places to source pies — petrol stations.
A BP or Z petrol station is usually a surefire place to grab a pie, even better if it looks like it has been sitting in the cabinet for a while. Don’t let the fact that we have annual pie awards fool you. Pies should be cheap and dirty, doused in the sweet tomato sauce we like here, and devoured in a few messy bites.
Tuck into a classic mince and cheese pie, or a vegan butter chick’n pie, and enjoy. Don’t think too hard about what’s in the filling, park all of your questions and regrets, and embrace pies as a cultural experience.
There are few better road trip snacks than a pie.
Where to eat a pie:
Z and BP petrol stations usually have a pie cabinet, including vegan options.
For something a bit more upmarket, check out Pie Rolla on Karangahape Road in Auckland — the pies cost about twice as much, but they are much more elaborate and are probably made with real ingredients.
You should also try hāngī and fry bread
Ada’s take on hāngī — photo courtesy of Ada
Hāngī is a traditional Maori method of cooking food underground using heated stones.
It often includes meats like lamb, pork, and chicken, along with vegetables like kūmara (a sweet potato brought to New Zealand by early Māori settlers).
Fried bread — also called fry bread, or parāoa parai — is a much-loved Māori dish served up with a hangi. Fried bread is crunchy on the outside and fluffy on the inside, a little like a doughnut.
Where to eat hāngī and fry bread:
At Ada in Grey Lynn, a top Auckland restaurant, you can try hāngī pork belly with potato mousse, crispy onions, cured egg yolk, chive oil, or hangi potatoes with chèvre, truffle oil and porcini soil.
Ada also serves up a version of fried bread. Their take on it — rēwena fried bread — uses sourdough to elevate the classic fried bread. You can order simple rēwena fried bread with duck fat, or something more fancy, like rēwena fried bread with local oyster mushroom and blue cheese.
If you stop in Rotorua, check out the evening hangi experience at Te Puia. This is a more immersive chance to eat hangi in a setting more geared towards understanding Maori culture.
If you want to eat like a local, eat crayfish
Crayfish, or "kōura" in the Māori language, is a quintessential New Zealand food.
Testament to the coastal lifestyle in New Zealand, crayfish are often caught by hobby divers and served with a drizzle of garlic butter or a splash of lemon juice.
If you don’t plan on foraging crayfish for yourself, you can try them at one of the seafood shacks along coastal highways around New Zealand.
Where to eat crayfish:
Nin's Bin is an iconic seafood stop located in Kaikoura, a coastal town in the South Island. The rustic caravan, perched between the highway and the waves, is renowned for serving some of the freshest crayfish in the region. Nin’s Bin is a third generation family business, which has been catching and cook crayfish for around 40 years. Crayfish are caught out the front of the caravan early each morning, and served simply with fresh lemon and garlic butter.
The Fish Wife in Moeraki, on the East Coast of the South Island, is one of the best places to experience crayfish, or any other fresh seafood. Owned and operated by locals John and Nicky, this humble sea food shack serves up crayfish caught that day, pan fried with garlic and served with lemon and a generous scoop of chips.
Kina is a prickly little delicacy
Kina is New Zealand’s sea urchin.
As New Zealand’s waters are overfished and populations of other sea creatures that would normally prey on kina, like snapper and crayfish, decline, kina colonies are booming.
This is bad news for marine eco-systems, but means that you can’t take too many kina from the water — in fact, you’re probably doing the ocean a favour.
Which is great news for all the locals who love prying kina off the rocks. At some beaches in Northland, kina are so popular beaches have dedicated bins for their shells.
Where to eat kina:
At kingi in Auckland, you can eat kina on toast, with pancetta.
In Arrowtown, dine at Aosta and you can try kina pappardelle (the pasta is made with kina roe) with crispy leeks and hen’s yolk — you can even add paua for more decadence. This is allegedly the only dish that permanently resides on the menu, because taking it off would cause outrage among locals.
Mānuka honey
When I was growing up, my father kept bee hives on our farm in the Coromandel, so honey has always been one of the key flavours of New Zealand for me.
We used to have a honey house, with drums of honey our bees harvested from the native trees in the area. It served as more than just a topping for our toast. Any time we had a burn, a scrape, or other injury, my father would slather us mānuka honey.
It wasn’t a bad idea — mānuka honey has medicinal properties.
Where to taste honey:
In Queenstown, make your way to the rustic Country Lane near Frankton, and check out Buzzstop. You can shop for honey, taste a whole range of different honeys, or do a tour to learn more about it. It’s a small, locally run business and a nice way to spend some free time in Queenstown.
Wild hunted meat
New Zealand has an unfortunate pest problem. Our wildest places are overrun with introduced animals like deer, rabbits, pigs, and even wallabies.
Because these animals are so abundant, and cause so much damage to our native ecosystems, hunting is a popular past time in New Zealand. And with hunting comes game meat.
Back when I still ate meat, that used to look like wild pork, lean and dry. Or duck, even drier. I used to help pluck them, and wild duck was a pretty common dish in our household. I always thought duck was a dark, dry meat that had to be drenched in gravy.
There was one time my mum put a pukeko in a stew and fed it to us. But as far as I know, we never had possum for dinner.
I have friends who live in Cromwell, near Queenstown, who never buy their own meat. If they need to fill up the freezer, they load up their guns and head out to bag a deer or two. It’s open season on deer in New Zealand, so if you’re handy with a rifle you can get yourself a whole lot of free meat — you just have to be fit enough to carry it out.
Where to eat wild meat in New Zealand:
One of the best places to try wild meat is Ben Bayly’s restaurant Ahi (which means fire in te reo Māori), located in the Commercial Bay precinct in downtown Auckland. On the menu are wild-shot red deer and wallaby tartare, made with meat from wild wallabies hunted in the South Island.
Another exellent place to try New Zealand meat is Cazador, a family owned and operated restauratn serving wild, organic, and free range ingredients. The meat on their menus is sourced from New Zealand hunters and includes dishes like grilled duck hearts and braised boar shoulder.
You can also shop their deli charcuterie, with options like game salami, heritage pork lonzo, and game terrine.
Pāua
Photo courtesy of Mr Morris
Pāua, also known as abalone, are sea snails with striking, iridescent shells.
Their shells are often used in traditional Māori art and jewellery due to their beauty.
The meat of the pāua is a New Zealand delicacy with a slightly salty flavour and a tender, almost gelatinous texture.
Pāua can be sliced thinly and enjoyed raw as sashimi or lightly seared, similar to scallops.
Where to try pāua:
Try a farmed baby Pāua crumpet with fermented peanut butter and celery leaf mayonaise at Ahi, Ben Bayly’s restaurant in Commercial Bay in downtown Auckland.
Pāua, ginger, and seaweed provides a decadent snack at the elevated bistro Mr Morris in Central Auckland.
In Queenstown, the Sherwood Restaurant — which has a strong focus on sustainability and aims to grow most of the produce it uses in its own garden — you can try blackfoot paua pasta.
New Zealand lamb
Photo courtesy of Hello Beasty
New Zealand is renowned for its high-quality lamb.
The country has some of the best conditions in the world for raising sheep, with lush pastures and a temperate climate. Most New Zealand lamb is grass-fed, which contributes to its taste and tenderness.
Try New Zealand lamb as a roast, in a stew, or as part of a traditional Kiwi meat pie.
For something a little different, try the slow-cooked New Zealand lamb in Sichuan sauce at Hello Beasty, a restaurant in the Viaduct Harbour in Auckland.
Hello Beasty serves East Asian fusion cuisine. Influences include Japanese, Chinese, and Korean cuisine, resulting in a menu with bold, creative flavours.
Or, for something more elaborate, head to Amisfield restaurant.
Amisfield is one of Queenstown’s best restaurants, and chef Vaughan Mabee serves lamb tails as part of his tasting menu celebrating New Zealand culture.
6. Green-lipped mussels
New Zealand's coastline offers an abundance of seafood, and green-lipped mussels are a classic dish.
The Marlborough region at the top of the South Island is famous for producing green-lipped mussels — the small town of Havelock dubs itself “the Greenshell Mussel capital of the world".
Try Marlborough’s mussels at the Mussel Pot in Havelock, a quirky little restaurant that has been serving this local delicacy for decades.
Another place to try green lipped mussels is The Mussel Inn in Golden Bay.
The community oriented Inn was established 30 years ago, with a single-minded vision of creating a welcoming space for people to gather and enjoy good food and music.
Today, The Mussel Inn is a stalwart of Golden Bay. Swinging by for a meal and music is one of the best things to do in Golden Bay, and a surefire way to experience local culture.
The pub is simple but cosy, the menu simple but delicious.
Feast on mussels and garlic bread, or enjoy dishes made with vegetables grown in their own garden, while you soak up the atmosphere and make plans to move to Golden Bay.
Whitebait fritters
One thing I refuse to add to this list, but that appears in many other articles about traditional New Zealand food, is whitebait fritters. Whitebait, or inanga in Maori, are immature fish that travel in schools up rivers in New Zealand.
Four of the five species of whitebait are endangered.
That means that this local ‘delicacy’ is actually made up of endangered fish. Whitebait are at such high risk of extinction some estimates say they could be gone completely by 2034.
So please, don’t support the industry and avoid whitebait fritters.
10. Truffles
Photo by Andiamo
Photo by Andiamo
Did you know New Zealand grows truffles? New Zealand has at least 30 truffière, or truffle growing properties dotted around the country.
New Zealand truffles are seasonal produce. Fresh truffles are typically available between June and September, depending on the variety.
During the winter months, various Auckland restaurants add truffles to their menus in creative ways.
Keep an eye out for Onslow’s twice-baked truffle soufflé, served with gruyere, hazelnut and truffle cream. Onslow sources truffles locally from George’s Truffles in Riwaka.
Italian restaurant Andiamo, in the central neighbourhood of Herne Bay, has a decadent take on mac and cheese. Their macaroni and cheese with truffle is a decadent, comforting, and complex dish.
You can also add fresh shavings of locally-sourced truffle to any dish at Andiamo for $10 per gram. The chef recommends adding the seasonal delicacy to the cacio e pepe fusilli, or the bruschetta of whipped ricotta, grilled butternut, pomegranate and amaranth.
11. Flat white
The flat white is New Zealand’s most popular coffee order.
This espresso-based coffee is known for its creamy texture and smooth taste. While there is some debate about its origins, it is believed to have been invented in either Australia or New Zealand.
Either way, the flat white is a huge part of New Zealand coffee culture, and you’ll see it on the menu at every cafe.
Cafes in New Zealand are consistently good, but if you want to try some local favourites, check out Bestie Cafe on Karangahape Road in Auckland, or Orphan’s Kitchen in Ponsonby.
13. Oysters
The Oyster Inn on Waiheke Island
New Zealand is renowned for oysters. The Bluff oyster is one of the most sought-after varieties.
Bluff is a town at the very bottom of the South Island. Bluff oysters are celebrated for their distinctive flavour and tender texture. They are known for their briny, slightly sweet taste.
The Bluff oyster season runs from March to August, with the peak of flavour and quality occurring in April and May.
Bluff isn’t the only place that produces oysters, though.
Where to try New Zealand oysters: In Central Auckland, you can try oysters from all over New Zealand at Depot.
The lively, industrial-chic restaurant by TV chef Al Brown has an oyster bar, where you can sample oysters from Waiheke Island, the Coromandel, or Kerikeri in Northland.
Each location offers oysters with slightly different finishes — see if you can tell the difference between a sweet, creamy, or briny finish.
You can try oysters at the legendary Oyster Inn on Waiheke Island. This restaurant sources their oysters from Te Matuku Oysters who harvest the shellfish from pristine waters on the opposite side of the island.
15. Fresh fruit
Thanks to New Zealand’s range of climates, from the sub tropical north to the dry climes of Otago, means we grow a fantastic variety of fruit.
We export fruit all over the world — when I was in Arctic Norway, I came across New Zealand apples in a small supermarket.
Tasting New Zealand fruit straight from the source is much more delicious.
If you want to have a quintessential New Zealand experience, keep an eye out for ‘Pick Your Own’ signs on the side of the road. Many orchards and growers in New Zealand invite people to do exactly that — come in and pick your own fruit.
You can pick your own blueberries, peaches, nectarines, mandarins, or even cherries in Otago.
If you don’t want to spend hours wandering orchard rows, you can find seasonal fruit in New Zealand supermarkets. Thanks to the diverse climates around the country, you can find many different stone fruit, apples, and other New Zealand grown fruit.
My favourites are cherries, which are in season only from late December to late January. For this fleeting month, you’ll see punnets crammed with the shiny dark fruit stacked in supermarkets around the country.
I buy them by the kilogram, and eat them within days — it sounds excessive, but just as quickly as the cherries arrive, they’re gone again.
A classic seasonal New Zealand fruit is the feijoa, native to South America but grown extensively in New Zealand.
Feijoas have a unique taste that's a mix of pineapple and guava. Feijoas grow abundantly in New Zealand from April through to June, often littering footpaths where laden shrubs have dropped them from hedgerows.
So many people have feijoa trees in their gardens, that it’s rare to buy them. People tend to give them away, or sell them on the side of the road for a few dollars a bag.
Feijoas are so beloved in New Zealand, that they almost surpass kiwifruit in terms of how iconic they are.
16. The Southland cheese roll
The Southland cheese roll is a beloved New Zealand snack that originated in the Southland region on the South Island. These cheese rolls are fondly referred to as ‘Southland sushi’.
The rolls are made from grated cheese and various seasonings (such as onion soup mix, mustard, and cayenne pepper) rolled up in a slice of white bread, which is then toasted until the cheese is melted and the roll is crispy.
These cheese rolls are often served hot, making them a comforting and flavourful treat, especially during chilly Southland winters.
You’ll find Southland cheese rolls in many cafes and bakeries in the lower half of the South Island.
For a more elevated take on the cheese roll, head to Little Aosta in Arrowtown. This restaurant, masterminded by Ben Bayly of Ahi in Auckland, dishes up a fried Southland cheese roll with mozzarella.
You can also try Southland cheese rolls on Ponsonby Road in Auckland, at the delightful Orphan’s Kitchen cafe.
Of course, as well as having lots of outstanding food, New Zealand produces excellent wine. Some of the best regions for indulging in New Zealand wine include:
Martinborough — stop by this wine town near Wellington to sample savoury pinot noirs and enjoy epic vineyard platters in the sunshine.
Waiheke Island — The vineyards on Waiheke are famous for Bordeaux varietals and for having luscious settings, some with sea views.
Central Otago — You can find dozens of wineries near Queenstown in the Gibbston region, and even more scattered around Wanaka. Go on a wine tour or cycle between vineyards in stunning Central Otago landscapes.
Thanks for reading this far! I hope you found some inspiration for foods to try on your New Zealand trip.
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