Cuisine dines out on New Zealand’s Top 50 restaurants

13 June 2012

Cuisine dines out on New Zealand’s Top 50 restaurants

Cuisine magazine has announced the Top 50 finalists in its 2012 NZ Restaurant of the Year, in association with Vittoria Coffee.

The editor of Cuisine, Sarah Nicholson, says determining which restaurants would secure the coveted 50 places was tougher than ever.

“A number of new restaurants have really raised the bar this year – we have eight first-time entrants to the list, including an impressive six in Auckland,” Nicholson says.

The finalists are drawn from throughout the country, from Dunedin to Whangarei, encompassing everything from smart new fine-diners to established neighbourhood favourites.

Now in its eighth year, the highly regarded Cuisine Restaurant of the Year is the only nationwide restaurant competition. Previous supreme winners include Auckland’s Merediths, North Otago’s Riverstone Kitchen and Wellington’s Logan Brown.

Kerry Tyack returns as the head judge for the awards in 2012. Tyack has been writing about and judging food and wine for more than 20 years, making him eminently qualified to oversee the judging panel of food and wine professionals.

Judges from throughout New Zealand have spent the past few months establishing the finalists, judging outside their local regions to ensure impartiality. Pairs of judges will anonymously visit all Top 50 restaurants and the top scoring restaurants will then be revisited to determine category winners.

A number of new categories have been introduced this year, including the Vittoria Coffee Chef of the Year Award.

“New Zealand has some truly world-class chefs and we wanted to recognise their innovation, creativity and skill,” says Nicholson. “I’ve no doubt that it will be a fiercely contested category.”

The full list of categories for the awards are:

• Cuisine Restaurant of the Year
• Vittoria Coffee Chef of the Year
• San Pellegrino Best Metropolitan Restaurant
• Monteith’s Best Regional restaurant
• Electrolux Best New Restaurant
• Whitestone Cheese Best Winery Restaurant
• Plumm Best Specialist Restaurant
• Villa Maria Restaurant Personality of the Year

The Cuisine NZ Restaurant of the Year winners will be announced at an industry event on the evening of Monday 6 August at the Auckland Art Gallery.

The finalists in alphabetical order by region are:

Northland
Á Deco

Auckland
Antoine’s Restaurant
Café Hanoi
Cibo
Clooney
Cocoro
Coco's Cantina
Depot
District Dining
Ebisu
Kitchen at Hotel De Brett
Merediths
MooChowChow
O’Connell Street Bistro
Ponsonby Road Bistro
Roxy
Sidart
Soul Bar and Bistro
The Engine Room
The French Café
The Grill
The Grove
TriBeCa
Vinnies

Waikato/BOP
Palate
Chim-Choo-Ree
Victoria Street Bistro

Hawkes Bay
Black Barn Bistro
Elephant Hill Estate & Winery
Terroir at Craggy Range

Wellington
Ambeli
Arbitrageur
Capitol
Hippopotamus
Logan Brown
Martin Bosley’s
Matterhorn
Ortega Fish Shack & Bar
The Larder
The White House

Marlborough/ Nelson
Hopgoods

Canterbury/ Christchurch
Edesia
Pegasus Bay Winery Restaurant
Pescatore

South Canterbury/ Oamaru
Riverstone Kitchen

Central Otago
Amisfield Bistro
Wai
Wakatipu Grill

Dunedin
Pier 24
Two Chefs Bistro

ENDS

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