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Arbitrageur
The hardest thing about the chi-chi Arbitrageur experience is pronouncing the name. Everything else is terribly polished. A clever colour-coding system will help you match your meal with a drop from the extensive wine selection, and there's a menu of well-priced nibbles and meals. Live jazz Friday and Saturday night rounds off a sophisticated experience.
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Aunty Mena's Vegetarian Café
More joy for noncarnivores: this cheap 'n' cheerful stalwart serves up veggie and vegan Malaysian and Chinese dishes. There are loads more noodle houses along Cuba St, all offering shoestring travellers spice-loaded dishes for only a few bucks.
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Café Bastille
Cuisine magazine gave its top gong (restaurant of the year) to this charmingly unpretentious French restaurant in 2005, but it doesn't take bookings, so it's a good idea to arrive early or expect to wait for a table. There's an emphasis on local produce, an expansive wine list and knowledgeable staff. Try long-standing favourites such as coq au vin before finishing with orange-caramel crepes. If you don't love the French, you will after this meal.
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Cafe L'Affare
Bustling L'Affare does everything right. It's a massive, atmospheric café with fast service, high communal tables, a disco ball and industrial stage lights. Kids can raid the toy box while Mum downs the perfect latte. Sensational giant toasties are a bargain.
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Chocolate Fish
Much is made of this café being a favourite with film stars working in Wellywood, but it's good enough without such validation. It's a colourful, quirky place in Scorching Bay, east of the city (for the scenic route, take Oriental Pde all the way around Evans Bay, a total of 13km). Sit outside right on the beach (good for swimming) and tuck into a bumper breakfast, perfect panini or hunk of cake. Expect to wait for a table on sunny weekends.
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Chow
This stylish eatery-bar serves pan-Asian cuisine amid '70s decor: pots of spiky plants, retro chairs and orange low-hanging lamps. Head here for yum cha lunch of a weekend, around NZ$10 lunch deals, or choose from a menu loaded with temptation (Thai chicken wrapped in banana leaf, spicy mussel fritters, Cantonese roast duck). Motel is the fabulous adjacent lounge bar.
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Crêpes a Go-Go
From a tiny yellow stall in the Manners Mall, a Breton batter-master whips up cheap crepes with your choice of sweet or savoury fillings for around NZ$5 - NZ$12 .
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Eat
For around NZ$8 - NZ$10 you can get a 'gourmet takeout'. Eat offers a range of juicy burgers, plus salads and a few interesting vego options if you choose to take the healthy route.
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Espressoholic
A serious supporter of coffee addiction is this grungy café, with chipped black tables and colourful graffiti art. Espressoholic keeps late hours (midnight or later), keeping punters happy with a good veggie selection, cool music and courtyard.
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Fidel's
Fidel's is an institution for caffeine-craving, left-wing subversives, watched over by images of Castro. Terrific eggs (any way you want 'em) are miraculously pumped from the itsy kitchen, along with some of Welly's finest muffins. Pierced, tattooed staff are studiously vague, but friendly. Open until late.
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Fisherman's Table
Built over the water in the old Oriental Bay Sea Baths and with good harbour views, this family-style eatery offers reasonably priced seafood and a menu full of daggy, old-fashioned (read crumbed and deep-fried) favourites.
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Floriditas
From the outside this is one of Cuba St's prettiest buildings, and the interior is just as lovely, with a charming old-world European feel helped along by white tiles, velvet drapes and leather banquettes. Quality bistro fare is the order of the day.
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Flying Burrito Brothers
Let your hair down with some tequila or a margarita at this bubbly restaurant. There's a menu with a fresh take on all the Mexican favourites plus an array of bocaditos (small bites, like tapas), and a menu for kids too.
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Hell
Demon gourmet pizzas are themed after all things evil for around NZ$9 - NZ$17 . Try the seven deadly sins range or the vegetarian 'purgatory'. Delivery available.
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Kai
The Maori family that owns and runs this tiny restaurant has created a warm, welcoming atmosphere, and the small kitchen churns out delicious Maori-fusion food. The menu features a helpful glossary for those who don't know their heihei (chicken) from their kuku (mussels). If you pick the right night (it varies), you'll be serenaded by the restaurant's owner, playing guitar and singing Maori songs. A truly memorable place. Bookings advised.
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Kopi
Malaysian for 'coffee', Kopi is consistently voted the city's best Malaysian eatery, the crowds attesting to its popularity. Choose from roti chanai (flat, flaky bread dipped in a creamy coconut curry); curries, such as beef rendang; and nasi kandar (coconut rice). For dessert: feijoa ice cream.
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La Casa della Pasta
Straight-up, home-style Italian food is what this welcoming, no-fuss place does well - food just like your nonna used to make. Options include comfort-food staples such as lasagne, ravioli, tortellini and gnocchi.
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Lido
A popular corner café with a curved window frontage and sunny aspect. Dine on the likes of Japanese-style fish cakes or a salad combining roasted vegies with potato and chorizo . There's live jazz Sunday night.
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Logan-Brown
Despite the neighbouring sex shops, this place oozes class and makes a great setting for a fancy-pants dinner. It's set in a former 1920s bank chamber but you don't have to break the bank to participate: the weekday lunch and pretheatre set menus (around NZ$35 , to be out by ) are top value.
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Martin Bosley's Yacht Club Restaurant
The prices (and most certainly the harbour views) should leave you in no doubt that this is one of Wellington's finest restaurants. Everything is top quality, from the elegant interior and polished service to the seafood-loaded menu.
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Midnight Espresso
This local stalwart serves food until around and is an institution for paper-reading, coffee-drinking and philosophising. Dine on primarily vegetarian and vegan food among the hessian-sack art and metal sculptures.
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One Red Dog
A bustling, upmarket brewery pub, popular for late-night weekend drinks. On offer are gourmet pizzas, pastas, calzones and salads. Families take the early dinner sitting and young 20-somethings create a fun, upbeat atmosphere.
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Pandoro Panetteria
Pandoro Panetteria is an aromatic Italian bakery with smooth, flavoursome coffee, savoury and sweet muffins, stuffed breads, pastry scrolls, cakes, tarts and brownies.
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Parade Café
The outdoor deck at Parade is the perfect place to unwind over brunch or a beer; it's just a pity there's no view of the nearby water. Still, it's a minor quibble, given the laid-back atmosphere and crowd-pleasing menu.
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Restaurant 88
There's a wonderfully mixed menu of Kiwi and Vietnamese dishes here, served in a tropical-flavoured space filled with wooden screens, plants and lanterns. Traditionalists can enjoy lamb or steak; the more adventurous can choose from fresh, spicy dishes such as lemongrass beef salad.
