2025 certainly offered up many wonderful eating experiences, starting with our trip up to Hawke’s Bay in January where we enjoyed lunch at Craggy Range Winery, and excellent food at fish restaurant Hunger Monger and Central Fire Station Bistro in Napier.
We went to three Noble Rot events – the Sherry Long Lunch which gave us a new insight into sherry, From Santigao to Buenos Aires with wines from Chile and Argentina and the recent Christmas Feast. All were excellent with fantastic food and of course wine. This is a wonderful restaurant that seems to go under the radar for some reason. We also ate there back in January from their normal menu and found the found quite wonderful (can still remember the lamb).
A real highlight of the year was Peter Gordon’s guest spot at Floriditas, with wonderful food and even a chance to speak to him and say how much we enjoyed the evening.
Other wonderful food was eaten at WBC, Ortega Fish Shack and Rita and the new enterprise Supra where I have now been 3 times and loved it each time.
My new favourite though must be Jano Bistro, where we went for my birthday in July and also in August for their entry in Burger Wellington. The food was fantastic, with so many flavours and an excellent wine pairing menu too.
We also ate at Midden in Sydney, Indian restaurant Chaat Street and Vietnamese fusion Apachè in their new home, Rosella for some lovely small dishes, the wonderful Damascus and an excellent lunch at The Runholder when we went to Greytown for the weekend.
There have been fabulous lunches at Floriditas (always good), Glou Glou, Brac & Bow in Featherston (the smoked seafood chowder is excellent) and August as well as fabulous sandwiches at Squirrel and bagels at The Bond Street Deli.
All in all, a fabulous year of eating. If anyone has any recommendations on good places to eat in Hamburg, do let me know. In the meantime, we have one more dinner to enjoy out before the end of the year. But more on that later…..
Thistles and Kiwis is a Wellington, New Zealand based blog written by Barbara, who likes cats, summer, good food and pretends to garden.
Thistles and Kiwis 
What a year of flavors and a lifetime of memories with every bite! I’m looking forward to the next 365 days of taste!
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I think we had some fantastic food this year!
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Thank you for including those menus – always such fun to look at!
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Did you see Becky’s post on Hamburg this morning? Not necessarily for eating but an amazing place to look around xx
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What a lovely idea to keep note of your most memorable restaurant visits. Hamburg was the home town of my first husband and we used to visit a lot. My favourite restaurant was the Fischereihafen down in the harbour. It has been there for years and I believe it is still very popular with fish lovers.
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