This August, Auckland’s city centre is once again serving up serious value, with more than 100 special menus and over 20 one-off culinary events taking place throughout the month.
From generous set menus and clever cocktail pairings to cross-cultural collaborations and intimate chef encounters, Restaurant Month offers countless reasons to venture into the city. Whether you’re planning a long lunch, a midweek dinner or something altogether more memorable, these are the offers worth booking now.
Advieh
Offer: $65 Three-Course Lunch or $95 Three-Course Sharing-Style Dinner
Available: Lunch or Dinner
At Advieh, lunch begins with Turkish pide before moving through chicken-liver parfait or split-pea hummus and a choice of soused market fish, celeriac shish or lamb-neck shawarma. The more expansive dinner adds tuna carpaccio, spatchcock chicken and coastal lamb shoulder, before a spiced sunchoke cake, poached rhubarb and artichoke ice cream.
The restaurant is also hosting a one-night-only event. On Thursday the 27th, Stewart will join Dariush Lolaiy for a five-course Middle Eastern collaboration, also priced at $179.
Book here.
Ahi
Offer: $89 Three-Course
Available: Lunch or Dinner
Bold, inventive and distinctly local, Ahi’s three-course menu offers a confident snapshot of contemporary New Zealand cooking. The restaurant’s cult-favourite scampi corn dog opens proceedings alongside Akaroa salmon with kina crème fraîche and salmon roe, before diners choose between lamb or steamed fish with seasonal vegetables.
Book here.
Bravo at Cracker Bay
Offer: $55 Two-Course or $65 Three-Course
Available: Lunch or Dinner
Bravo’s menu strikes a satisfying balance between polished and generous. Begin with cured salmon with wasabi and apple, burrata finished with chilli crisp, or sesame prawn toast with spicy aioli. Pork scotch fillet, spiced chicken breast and fazzoletti pasta headline the mains, while crème brûlée with Biscoff crumb and berry sorbet makes a fitting finale.
Ember Restaurant
Offer: $30 Two-Course Sharing Style
Available: Lunch or Dinner
Ember proves that excellent value needn’t mean playing it safe. Its concise sharing menu begins with market fish crudo dressed with orange, tarragon and crème fraîche, before moving on to meltingly tender lamb shoulder with labneh, sweet peas, tamari and burnt honey.
Book here.
Federal Delicatessen
Offer: $30 Three-Course
Available: Lunch or Dinner, Monday to Saturday
The Fed keeps things playful with a three-course menu of American-deli comfort food. Mac and cheese bites arrive first, followed by a mini hoagie board with fries, featuring both fish and Frank & Johnny hoagies. A miniature version of the restaurant’s beloved cheesecake, finished with malt-biscuit crumb, brings the meal home.
Walk-ins only.
First Mates, Last Laugh
Offer: $55 Three-Course
Available: Lunch or Dinner
This relaxed Westhaven destination is offering three generous courses beside the water. Choose between a tempura fish taco or beef croquettes to start, followed by grilled snapper with saffron and ginger butter or braised beef cheek with aji mash. Sorbet or gelato provides a tasty finish.
Book here.
The Grill
Offer: $85 Three-Course
Available: Dinner, Sunday to Thursday
The Grill’s three-course dinner is an exercise in refined indulgence. Snacks from the kitchen and cured salmon with mandarin, coconut dashi and cucumber set the tone before slow-cooked beef cheek arrives with celeriac mousse and black garlic. The menu is available from 5pm until 6.30pm and again after 8pm.
Book here.
Huami
Offer: $55 Three-Course Sharing Style
Available: Dinner Daily; Lunch Saturday and Sunday
Huami brings bold regional Chinese flavours to a generous sharing menu designed for a minimum of two. Traditional honey-walnut chicken is followed by a choice of sweetcorn soup with chicken and crab or minced-beef loin soup with egg-white drop. For the main event, choose between Fujian-style glass noodles with mixed seafood and butter sauce or Anhui-style pan-fried egg-yolk-wrapped bean curd.
Book here.
Katsura
Offer: $159 Eight Dishes
Available: Dinner, Friday and Saturday
Katsura’s A Taste of Japan experience is part dinner, part culinary theatre. Limited to only 10 guests per sitting, the evening moves through eight Japanese preparations, including otsukuri, omiotsuke, temakizushi, tempura, ramen, kushimono and teppanyaki, before concluding with delicate sakura mochi.
Book here.
Kemuri HiFi
Offer: $30 Bars & Bites
Available: Tuesday to Saturday
Vinyl-centric basement bar Kemuri Hi-Fi is pairing a bright cocktail of tequila, Aperol, citrus and Japanese melon liqueur with assorted mochi and edamame, finished with flaky yuzu salt. Best enjoyed with something excellent spinning through the bar’s high-fidelity sound system.
Book here.
Kingi
Offer: $30 One-Course Lunch or $55 Two-Course Dinner
Available: Lunch or Dinner
Kingi keeps things characteristically coastal and produce-led. Lunch offers a choice of steak frites with truffle jus, fish and chips, a tuna burger with pickles and mizuna, or forest-mushroom casarecce. At dinner, lamb pithivier, snapper with almond sauce and smoked-eel gribiche, or wood-roasted mushrooms are followed by chocolate mousse or roasted-parsnip semifreddo.
On Wednesday the 19th of August, the restaurant will revisit six years of favourite dishes with For a Taste of Kingi Classics. The $95 one-night-only event begins with a snack on arrival before a three-course shared feast featuring Mills Bay mussels with nduja butter, buttermilk-marinated fish wings and oven-roasted red deer with cacao and beetroot.
Book here.
Kome
Offer: $55 Two-Course Sharing Style plus Drink
Available: Lunch or Dinner
Kome’s generous Japanese menu is designed for a minimum of two. Edamame and kimchi are followed by sashimi and aburi salmon and beef nigiri, before diners select two dishes from Tokyo chicken wings, karaage chicken, agedashi tofu or pork-and-vegetable gyoza. A choice of house beer, sake, wine, soft drink or mocktail is also included.
Book here.
Kureta
Offer: $120 or $150 Ten-Course Omakase Dinner with Japanese Tea; $200 Immersive Omakase with Wine and Sake Pairing
Available: Dinner, Tuesday to Saturday
Kureta’s intimate Teppan House transforms dinner into an elemental journey through Japanese craftsmanship and New Zealand produce. The ten-course omakase moves from chawanmushi with pāua cream and A5 Wagyu yaki-shabu with kina and caviar to sashimi, wagyu oden, hibachi-grilled black tiger prawn and aged beef, concluding with char-grilled rice balls and warm matcha. Japanese tea is included, while the $200 immersive experience adds a complimentary wine and sake pairing valued at $100 per person.
Book here.
The Lodge Bar & Dining
Offer: $45 Main plus Wine
Available: Lunch or Dinner
Simple, comforting and well matched, The Lodge’s offer pairs confit-duck pappardelle with duck jus, chilli, mushrooms, parmesan and chives with a glass of Rodd & Gunn’s 2024 Central Otago Pinot Noir. An easy choice for a polished midweek lunch or dinner.
Book here.
Masu
Offer: $69 Three-Course
Available: Dinner
Masu’s three-course dinner brings together some of the Japanese restaurant’s most recognisable signatures. Spicy tuna temaki and the chef’s three-piece sashimi selection are followed by seared-salmon kamameshi, before a shiro-miso pavlova offers a clever sweet-savoury finish.
Book here.
Metita
Offer: $60 Two-Course
Available: Dinner
Metita’s two-course menu is rich with Pacific flavour. Choose between steamed snapper with yellow curry, young coconut and chilli relish or slow-braised lamb shank with spiced coconut gravy and ulu. Dessert brings either panipopo with spiced-rum caramel and banana sorbet or coconut rice pudding with mango and kalamansi.
On Thursday the 13th of August, Michael Meredith will also join forces with Trivet’s Wallace Mua for the $165 Metita x Trivet dinner — a five-course exploration of Pacific flavours, seasonal produce and ocean-to-shore storytelling.
Book here.
Origine
Offer: $45 Three-Course
Available: Lunch or Dinner
Origine leans into the enduring comforts of French cooking. Duck-liver parfait opens the menu, followed by slow-roasted lamb shoulder with agria gnocchi, buttered leeks, carrots and mint chimichurri. Chocolate mousse with dulce de leche and mandarin completes a meal that feels both classic and quietly indulgent.
Book here.
SkyBar
Offer: $38 or $28 Bars & Bites
Available: During SkyBar Hours
High above the city, SkyBar has created two cocktail-and-bite pairings. The $38 option matches mussels with Sea Mist, a bright blend of limoncello, cucumber, coriander and citrus, softened with mezcal smoke and dry vermouth. For something sweeter, the $28 In the Clouds pairs vodka, cold brew and coffee liqueur with a rich coffee truffle.
Book here.
Somm Wine Bar & Bistro
Offer: $45 Two-Course
Available: Lunch or Dinner
Somm brings its inner-city cellar-door charm to a two-course menu made for pairing. Begin with shallot tarte tatin, trevally tartare or crispy fried chicken with hot honey, before moving to market fish with sauce Dugléré, venison pot pie or grass-fed sirloin with Café de Paris butter. Add dessert for $10 or explore the menu alongside a four-pour wine flight for $28.
Book here.
Soul Bar & Bistro
Offer: $60 Two-Course or $72 Three-Course
Available: Lunch or Dinner
Soul brings its signature sense of occasion to a menu that moves between freshness and full-throttle indulgence. Begin with tuna carpaccio, salt-and-pepper squid or a chicken-and-mushroom vol-au-vent before choosing seafood spaghetti alla chitarra, confit duck leg or grass-fed bavette. The three-course option adds a decadent chocolate-and-orange soufflé with ganache and caramelised-orange ice cream.
Book here.
Trivet
Offer: $55 Two-Course Sharing Style
Available: Lunch or Dinner
Trivet’s shared menu lands squarely between playful and comforting. Flatbread with coconut butter arrives alongside dishes such as pig’s ears with char siu barbecue, free-range egg and octopus carpaccio. Mains include coconut-confit market fish and karaage chicken with bok choy, carrot ranch and XO sauce.
On Thursday the 13th of August, Trivet’s Wallace Mua will join Metita’s Michael Meredith for the $165 Metita x Trivet dinner, bringing together five courses shaped by Pacific flavours, seasonal produce and bold contemporary technique.
Book here.
