7 Best Restaurants in North Island's West Coast, New Zealand

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.

At this buzzing corner café, surfers—here for the great coffee and free-range food—cram the couches and Formica tables beneath walls decorated with hanging plants, surfboards, and Raglan beach scenes. The menu is huge and the meals hearty, starting with breakfast at 8. Dishes have diverse influences, with miso mushrooms chili crunch rice firm favorites. There's also a selection of organic beers, wines, teas, smoothies, and juices.

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.

Wholesome homemade food attracts both Taranaki locals and travelers to this character-filled village café housed in a circa-1878 butcher shop. The menu runs from breakfast through late lunch, with dinner only on Friday and Saturday nights. Midway between New Plymouth and Stratford, in the town of Inglewood, it’s a welcome spot if you’re on the road, heading to the mountain.

Occupying a 100-year-old shearing shed, the funky, rustic Rock-it serves casual Kiwi fare and local Raglan Roast coffee. The menu is small but wholesome; try the all-day brunch, poke bowls, or burger for lunch, either inside or out on the huge deck. It’s 3 km (2 miles) from town on the way to Ocean Beach. It is open for dinner in the peak summer months.

Situated at Waitomo's General Store (which itself offers limited grocery items and souvenirs), this versatile eatery can serve as a café if you're just looking for a coffee with a scone or biscuit, but it also offers fresh cabinet-style food such as paninis, as well as a full menu for breakfast, lunch, and early dinner. Grab a comfortable and sunny spot near the window in the lounge-style seating area if you can, but there are plenty of standard tables and chairs. The outdoor deck is a good choice in the summer. Decor is fairly sparse, but there are some nice photos (for sale) of New Zealand landscapes on a couple of the walls. The eatery opens by 8 am each day.

Join the locals at this cozy café, spread throughout the veranda, garden, and several intimate rooms of an old, mostly yellow villa. It serves a full breakfast/brunch menu with all the classics as well as wholesome, house-cooked lunches. It's located across the road from the river and a two-minute drive from the city center. The café caters well to vegetarians and vegans (try the open vegan sub with falafel, vegan cream cheese, and caramelized onion) and meat eaters are well looked after with options like a slow-cooked lamb shoulder salad.