Number 5

5 City Rd, CBD. Ph 309-9273, number5.co.nz.
Dinner Monday-Saturday.

Highly Commended: Best Drinks List

Martina Lutz (above) has built up Number 5, just off Symonds St, as a go-to restaurant for New Zealand classics, which is to say French-inspired Pacific Rim, lighter on the butter than the old ways might suggest, and welcoming of Asian highlights too, but essentially a place where the goal is to cook meat to the optimum point of tenderness and flavour; choose vegetables for their seasonality and complementary value; and
use sauces to transform the dishes, all of which are correctly prepared and served.
New chef Jono Beattie (also pictured) has stayed true to these principles but got a deal more inventive with the ingredients. Chocolate with your duck, sir? Tapioca and
pickled mushrooms with your snapper? Service is as attentive and experienced as ever and the drinks list remains a showcase for local wines, with shrewdly chosen imported highlights. A peg down from fine dining, but losing nothing in the process. $$$$$

4 Spoons

A favourite dish: Duck with chestnut, rhubarb, walnuts and chocolate.

Degustation option / Private rooms / Takes large groups / Bar