Australia and New Zealand eat outdoors, early and extremely well. Both countries took a European farmhouse tradition, added Asian immigration and a serious coffee culture, and arrived at something that exists nowhere else. The result is the easiest place in the world to eat well without a reservation — and one of the hardest to eat badly.
Australia
Sydney and Melbourne argue about which has the better food, and both are right. Melbourne’s laneways hide small rooms with no signage; Sydney does seafood and harbour views. Outside the cities, the wine regions — Barossa, McLaren Vale, Margaret River, the Yarra — are where lunch becomes the reason for the drive.
Coffee is not a detail here. Ordering a flat white is a test, and the standard is high everywhere from a beach kiosk to a city roastery.
New Zealand
Smaller, quieter, and built on produce rather than technique. Lamb, venison, green-lipped mussels, Bluff oysters in season, and Central Otago pinot noir. Auckland and Wellington have the concentration of restaurants; the rest of the country is where the ingredients come from.
The Maori dimension
A hangi — meat and vegetables cooked in an earth oven — is worth experiencing once, properly, with someone who can explain it. It is not a restaurant dish, and the tourist versions vary in quality.
How we place meals here
By drive time, mostly. Distances in both countries are longer than they look, and the best lunch is often at a winery you were driving past anyway. We plan the food stops into the route rather than detouring for them — and we book the two or three places a year that genuinely need booking.
Tell us your route and what you like to eat — we will shape the days around it.
BLISS TRAVEL — Private Tours Worldwide
