Aug 22, 2023 Cafes
It’s been two years since we did our last survey of Auckland’s cafes, assessing daytime eateries for excellent coffee and eggs. New places have, inevitably, opened up since then, and old ones have been revisited — there are 16 cafes that appear on the Top 50 for the first time, and a heap more that have returned.
Cafes reflect how fast-moving our tastes tend to be: we are fickle beings, who are one day absolutely enamoured of candyfloss on our brioche French toast, and the next day hate it with all our being, sickened by the Instagram-pandering of it all. But as pit stops that many of us include in our daily routine without even thinking, cafes are also institutions of tradition. Dishes at trendy new places may have interesting tweaks and new and exciting ingredients slotted in, but they generally have the same DNA. The same genetic make-up of eggs, bacon and toast. We’re creatures of habit and all.
That’s perhaps why we found cafes that offered a unique point of difference more easily stood out — the ones that gave us a reason to venture out of our little bubbles, where we live and work, to gatecrash someone else’s local. We looked for brew bars that had a hyper-focus on specialist coffee, or places where you can eat noodles for breakfast, or somewhere you might also get a hand-crafted sourdough loaf, made in house.
We’ve also awarded some of those stand-out cafes, crowning a Supreme Winner (congrats, Duo!) and acknowledging a brew bar that makes very good coffee (congrats, Rumours !). Alongside that, we also look at the cafe with the Best Service, Best Surroundings, Best Fit-Out, and more.
Click here for the full list and all the winners.
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