Cuisine is once again proud to name the nation’s top restaurants and standout regional dining destinations, and on the night of nights for New Zealand hospitality – the Cuisine Good Food Awards presented by American Express – we launched the Cuisine New Zealand Good Food Guide 2026. The event also announced our award winners and highly anticipated hat allocations to recognise the restaurants and individuals setting the benchmark for dining excellence across Aotearoa. For almost four decades, the Cuisine Good Food Guide has helped New Zealanders discover exceptional places to dine, and in 2026 more than 400 venues have made our national guide, showcasing outstanding hospitality establishments right across the country from fine dining to metropolitan and neighbourhood favourites.

Curated by a national assessment team comprising food-and-beverage writers, critics, chefs and hospitality professionals, and led by food-and-drink writer and hospitality expert Kerry Tyack, the Cuisine Good Food Awards and Cuisine Good Food Guide profile the country’s hottest talent and restaurants to encourage patronage and showcase New Zealand cuisine to local and international audiences. Kerry says 2026 is a truly positive story. “We have discovered terrific dining experiences served with enthusiasm all around the country: small, unpretentious suburban dining rooms; sumptuous, brilliantly orchestrated menus delivered by highly trained professionals in designer restaurants; bespoke, chef-led dining in highly intimate settings. Aotearoa New Zealand is incredibly well-served on all levels and one of the most exciting observations we can share is that Kiwi chefs and restaurants are not standing still – they continue to build on their recognition, they are seeking new directions, they are constantly looking to improve and they are taking our dining options to the highest level. In the Cuisine Good Food Guide we are delighted to share what we have discovered in the last 12 months and to point diners in the direction of consistency, innovation and satisfaction all around the country.”

Cuisine editor Kelli Brett said, “At a time when international attention is turning towards New Zealand dining, our national perspective has never felt more important. The arrival of the Michelin Guide has shone a welcome spotlight on restaurants in four of our cities, but New Zealand’s food story stretches much further. Exceptional hospitality exists throughout all of our regions and small towns and has become part of the reason to travel there in the first place. For almost four decades, Cuisine has championed that wider story. Our Cuisine Good Food Guide recognises excellence wherever we find it and helps to discover the people and places making eating and drinking in this country so exciting right now.”

The curious among you will notice some changes or omissions with regard to the following restaurants. We want to assure you they have not been overlooked or forgotten, but to uphold the integrity of the assessment process certain changes at a restaurant within the judging period make that restaurant ineligible to be assessed. Canting, Harbourside Ocean Bar & Grill, Origine, Moiety, Rita and Sidart have signalled closure or re-formatting, while Cassia, Supra and The Monday Room are on the move and Rātā, Black Estate and Amisfield implemented chef changes during our assessment period. We look forward to seeing where they take us in 2027.