2 Best Restaurants in Palmerston North, North Island's West Coast

Though this café shares premises with a property brokerage office, it's not your usual pie and sandwich workplace diner. At lunchtime, people from all over town descend on the Local, and you are unlikely to get a table to yourself if you don't make a reservation. However, there is usually space on the long communal table. A popular menu option is to build your own breakfast: choose how you'd like your eggs and add anything from grilled salmon and halloumi to kumara (sweet potato) rosti. Smashed avo and feta is a longstanding vegetarian and gluten free brunch favorite. It's about a 15-minute walk from the center of town, or a short drive.

Just off the Square, funky Café Cuba is a perennially popular local haunt for breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner, and after-show mingling. The menu is all classic, wholesome café fare, matched with laid-back background music. There are magazines and newspapers to peruse if you can focus with the happy chatter of locals all around.