9 of the best Queenstown restaurants for foodies
Taste some of New Zealand’s finest cuisine on your visit to Queenstown.
Queenstown is a small but vibrant town, with many restaurants lining the waterfront and busy streets.
Restaurants in Queenstown showcase some of the best produce from the wider region, including wild deer from Central Otago, oysters from Bluff, cherries picked from orchards in Cromwell, and racks of lamb from high country stations.
Eating out in Queenstown can be a real experience — here are some of the best Queenstown restaurants to enjoy during your visit.
But first, a couple of tips:
Make your Queenstown restaurant reservations in advance. It’s a small town and staff shortages are an ongoing problem, so restaurants hit capacity quickly. With some people booking weeks or months in advance, it pays to be organised.
Dining out in Queenstown can get expensive, so if you want to try the local restaurants on a budget, take a look at First Table. You can get 50% off your meals, if you’re happy to eat at 5.30pm.
It’s nice to dress up for Queenstown’s fancy restaurants, but if all you’ve packed is hiking gear, don’t worry too much — the dress codes are pretty lenient and you’ll see most people dressed very casually.
Being a vegetarian in New Zealand can be tough, especially in Queenstown and the South Island — many local dishes are meat or seafood based. Most restaurants will have at least one vegetarian/vegan option, but options are unfortunately more limited. A lot of fine dining in Queenstown involves premium cuts of meat, so you’re more likely to find vegetarian options at casual eateries like Ferg Bakery.
1) Blue Kanu — Pacific and Asian flavours
Cost: Mains from $31
Location: Church Street, Central Queenstown
Blue Kanu menu
Image courtesy of Blue Kanu
Blue Kanu is a great place to eat in Queenstown if you want to get a taste of modern New Zealand cuisine. Fusing both Pacifica and Asian style, Blue Kanu dubs their food “Polynasian”.
Asian influences are common in New Zealand, thanks to our proximity to the continent, and Pacific cuisine is on the rise.
Blue Kanu melds both styles to bring you dishes like lamb jungle curry with crispy kūmara (New Zealand sweet potato) and coconut yoghurt, and Korean fried chicken seasoned with horopito salt (a New Zealand herb).
2) Margo’s — Mexican with a twist
Ballarat Street, Central Queenstown
Margo’s menu
Margo’s is a Mexican restaurant in the centre of Queenstown. Margo’s takes creative liberties with the Mexican theme — this is a restaurant in New Zealand with a chef from the United States — but the food is reliably fresh and full of flavour.
All the usual suspects are on the menu, with tacos, nachos, fajitas, and mole.
There’s also a whole vegan menu, making this one of the best places to eat in Queenstown for vegetarians. Try the Mayan spiced tempeh fajita which comes with coconut crema made in Raglan, and guacamole from New Zealand avocados.
Another winner is the queso fundido — which can also be cashew ‘queso’ — with smoked corn salsa and tortilla chips.
3) Botswana butchery — fine dining for meat lovers
Mains from $46
Marine Parade, Queenstown
Botswana Butchery menu
Botswana Butchery is a Queenstown restaurant in a historic cottage, boasting views of the lake and a cosy log fire in winter.
It’s clear from the name that this is not a vegetarian friendly restaurant — their focus is squarely on quality meats.
The menu features a variety of creative dishes, like saffrom risotto with beef osso bucco, parmesan foam andn thyme gremolata.
For a taste of New Zealand game meat, you can try Fiordland red deer loin, with kūmara toffee purée and forest mushrooms. You’ll get a hunting story to go with this deer loin.
4) Amisfield — a unique tasting menu
Tasting menu from $180
Arrowtown-Lake Hayes Road, Queenstown
If you’d like to treat yourself to a truly exceptional meal, book a lunch or dinner experience at Amisfield.
The Amisfield Restaurant and Cellar Door is located on the shore of Lake Hayes, a 20-minute drive from Queenstown.
It’s one of the top wineries to visit near Queenstown (I’m obsessed with their Reisling) and the restaurant is a superb exploration of Central Otago flavours.
Chef Vaughan Mabee takes cues from rugged New Zealand life and culture — he’s a passionate hunter, fisher, and forager.
Dishes are elaborate affairs exhibiting creativity and deep passion for the craft.
You can expect to eat things like head-shot fallow deer cooked, basted with smoked tallow, then hung over smoke for another few hours, served with magnolia flower pickles and bone marrow jus.
Or lambs tails dry aged, slow cooked, deboned, and reformed, complete with wool made from lamb fat, sugar, rosemary and vinegar. The dishes are every bit as elaborate as they sound.
Every single dish has a story, and is served with fresh produce, some of which is produced on the Amisfield estate. And of course, every dish pairs perfectly with their wines.
Lunch tasting menu is $180 per person, available Wednesday to Sunday 12pm-3pm.
The dinner menu is $360 per person. and available from 6.30pm Wednesday to Saturday. Reservations are essential.
5) Aosta — Arrowtown’s finest
In 2019, chef Ben Bayly — also behind Auckland restaurant Ahi — changed Arrowtown’s dining scene with Aosta.
Aosta is one of the best restaurants near Queenstown, showcasing some of the South Island’s freshest ingredients and produce in Northern Italian inspired dishes.
The restaurant is known for its exquisite pasta, handmade on-site every day.
One of Aosta’s iconic dishes is the kina pappardelle. This is an excellent way to try kina, New Zealand’s sea urchin, and you have the option of adding Stewart Island pāua as well.
The kūmara and truffle ravioli with sprouting broccoli and fresh sheep’s ricotta pulls together other New Zealand earthy autumnal flavours — the broccoli comes from a farm only kilometres from Aosta’s door, and the ricotta is produced by an Italian couple based in Nelson.
For dessert, there’s tiramisu, piped at your table by a chef, so you get to see the decadent dish take shape in front of you.
An added bonus: Little Aosta and The Blue Door
Image courtesy of Little Aosta
Image courtesy of the Blue Door
Following the success of Aosta, Little Aosta opened in February 2022.
Also the brainchild of Ben Bayly, this restaurant is right next door to Aosta, and also serves cuisine inspired by the cooking techniques of Northern Italy paired with the flavours of Central Otago and the South Island of New Zealand.
The difference is that the fast-paced trattoria offers pared back food that is designed for sharing. It’s intended to be causal, fun, and chaotic, to bring the magic of an authentic multi-generational Italian home into the heart of Arrowtown.
Think more woodfired sourdough pizza and meatballs, rather than fancy pasta.
At Little Aosta, you can even try a fried Southland cheese roll, a decadent take on the local ‘delicacy’ that some people call Southland sushi.
The Blue Door is directly opposite both restaurants.
This hidden gem of a bar serves local wine, beer, and cocktails in a historic stone bar with a courtyard. It’s the perfect spot to continue your evening.
6) Nest Kitchen — the best restaurant with a view in Queenstown
The Nest offers modern takes on classic New Zealand dishes at the highest alfresco dining in Queenstown.
The art deco style restaurant and has floor to ceiling windows for awe-inspiring views down Lake Wakatipu.
Nest is committed to showcasing the best of Central Otago flavours, foraging herbs, seeds and wild ingredients, and sourcing ingredients from local farmers, growers and fishermen.
The menu changes with each season, and the kitchen aims to be as close to zero waste as possible.
7) The Bunker — degustation menus that offer a taste of the south
The Bunker Restaurant in Queenstown is does fine dining in an intimate atmosphere.
With a focus on locally sourced ingredients and seasonal produce, The Bunker serves a creative menu inspired by New Zealand cuisine.
The Bunker offers both five and eight course tasting menus which offer a ‘taste of the South.’ That means you’ll be dining on things like West Coast paua tortellini, seared hare loin, Central Otago lamb, and Manuka honey brulee.
If you’ve never heard of some of the items on the menu, not to worry — the staff will talk you through each dish, and it’s a great way of learning about the South Island’s bounty of produce.
8) Rata — for a ‘Taste of New Zealand’ dinner
Tasting menu | $155 per person
A la carte mains from $42
Rātā has a menu that features the best of New Zealand. Dishes draw from cultural traditions coupled with the freshest produce.
Ingredients are preserved, fermented and dehydrated, bringing all the flavours of the south to the plate.
The menu features things like celeriac with fungi oyster mushroom from the Remarkables, blue cod with Southland swede, and potato and burnt butter rosti with a classic Kiwi dip.
9) Mora Wines & Artisanal Kitchen — for a delicious vineyard lunch
Mora Artisanal Kitchen (formerly Akarua) is a restaurant and cellar door in Arrowtown.
Mora means to linger or take pause in Latin. That’s the goal of this restaurant — to invite you to slow down and enjoy exceptional food in a beautiful environment.
This Queenstown restaurant offers a superb lunch of hand-crafted cuisine that is made from scratch. The kitchen uses New Zealand’s finest sustainable ingredients, sourced in and around the four coasts of the South Island.
It’s also a fabulous winery, so you can include a tasting with your meal.
Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoy going on a food tour of Queenstown.
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