Living’s photographers Doug Sherring and Michael Craig played with Instagram photos of some of the best spots in the CBD for Sunday brunch. Words by Danielle Wright.

Ponsonby Central’s latest instalment offers an exotic array of Chinese delights.

The Auckland restaurant scene is showing no signs of being in hard financial times. In the past year, 137 new establishments have opened, and fewer than 30 have closed their doors.

Morningside's neighbourhood Japanese restaurant ticks all the right boxes for food and hospitality.

The first batch of new chefs has graduated from the prestigious Le Cordon Bleu cooking school in Wellington today, including a former MasterChef contestant who will be working for one of the world's top ranked restaurants.

The international DJs have landed, the bar is stocked with exclusive Armand de Brignac champagne at $1400 a pop, and private booths of plush black velvet await.

Peter Calder returns to the city that introduced him to decent food.

Wellington's food festival is a treat for the palate. Don Kavanagh reports.

One of Georgie Pie's founding fathers says his contribution to the reheated fast-food favourite has been left in the back of a pie-warmer.

Its bistro is no more, but this inner-city hot spot still delivers on taste.

We came here because we wanted to check out a cafe outside our Mt Albert safe-zone.

Behind a modest exterior lies a cornucopia of flavours from the Middle East.

I should never have suggested my three mates meet me at the pub. My idea of a quick beer soon degenerated into several rounds and by the time we arrived at Da Vinci's the mood was somewhat more boisterous than it ought to be.

Bistro warmth combines with good, basic fare to cheer up a winter’s night.

We came here because I was bored of going to the usual jam-packed suspects (Circus, Frasers) on Mt Eden Rd.

A unique Pacific take on Chinese food shines in this playfully original setting.

Some people ain’t too bovvered by examples of bad grammar. But others, the self-appointed “grammar police”, are quick to frown upon the use of faulty punctuation.

When dining is this good, it's like a dream. One from which I simply don't want to wake up.

French chef Nic Poelaert will cook for one night at The Farm at Cape Kidnappers.

When my daughter was about two there were seventeen foods she would eat – including apples, bananas, blueberries, bread, carrots, cheerio sausages, cheese, eggs, fresh squeezed orange juice, fish fingers, hummus, milk, spaghetti and Weetbix.

New Zealand chef Peter Gordon's dine restaurant in Auckland shuts this week so the area can be gutted and the SkyCity Grand Hotel's new hotel lobby bar can be relocated there.

Silver service? Who the hell does silver service these days? I doubt that one waitress in 100 would know what it is.

Joanna Mathers finds the cosiest spots to eat and drink.

They may well have complained when this building on the corner of Tamaki Drive was built, but now it's here the citizens of St Heliers are flocking to their slick new eatery.

It's been quite a project. First they lifted it, then they shifted it, and it was slid back into place and lovingly restored to its former glory, and then some.

One Sunday in the April school holidays we had an early dinner at the Rose & Shamrock Village Inn in Havelock North. It’s an unpretentious, bustling, faux English/Irish pub that’s a great place for family dining.