Otago, Invercargill, and Stewart Island

2 Best Restaurants in Otago, Invercargill, and Stewart Island, New Zealand

Dunedin has the area's highest concentration of good restaurants. Seafood is a big player, in part because of Dunedin's coastal location but also because of its proximity to Bluff, the home of New Zealand's great delicacy, the Bluff oysters. Many of the least-expensive options are café-like Asian restaurants; these tend to close early, around 9 pm. Locals don't usually dress up or make reservations for anything other than the most exclusive establishments.

Invercargill has a more limited selection of mostly moderately priced restaurants. Stewart Island has a reasonable selection considering its location, but in winter some places limit their hours or close.

Church Hill Boutique Lodge and Restaurant

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The small dining room of this boutique accommodation serves mainly lodge guests, but contact the owners in advance and you might get lucky and have a real Stewart Island culinary experience of food of the sea, or kai moana. Stewart Island blue cod, salmon, mussels, oysters, crayfish, and paua (abalone) are all cooked to perfection and accompanied by fresh vegetables from the garden just yards away. This intimate restaurant has a view out to sea and seats six guests at a time.

Kai Kart

Come here for good old-fashioned fish-and-chips wrapped in a newspaper. There isn't an ounce of pretense in this cheerful little takeout place, which is little more than a trailer with a shelter tacked over; it's located close to the town's "skateboard park" (a wooden ramp). The owner has a mussel farm in Paterson Inlet, and the cod comes from the Halfmoon Bay fishery. Try the bacon-wrapped mussels or chef Hilli's divine mussel chowder. They also do great venison burgers.

Otago, Invercargill, and Stewart Island

Otago, Invercargill, and Stewart Island

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