Metro NZ

We were busy in April working to make our brand-new website, metromag.co.nz, a success. We know you love Metro, but it can be a long wait between issues so we’ve carved out our own little space on the internet (again). Reviews, new openings, closings

James Mustapic loves stirring up a bit of trouble. At 23, the stand-up comedian is already in the bad books of one, possibly two local D-list celebrities. Over the phone with Metro, he sounds despairing, his schoolboyish voice pitching high with ang

The Christchurch mosque shootings brought up anxieties I thought I’d tamed with years of therapy. I immediately thought of my closest relatives and people I grew up around attending Jummah (Friday prayer). I thought back to attending Ponsonby Mosque

The contemporary Labour Party has a problem with free speech. We may think Helen Clark fell because of energy-efficient light bulbs but they were mere symbols of a government that had become too controlling. The real damage was from 2007’s Electoral

What does it take to take the Supreme Winner award in Restaurant of the Year? You need really, really good food, and you need flawless service and a room that both delights and comforts. You need a good wine list, and a convincing reason for why you

Idon’t think I noticed the lights go down, but there was no missing the music going up. A lot. The droning bell giving way to the unmistakable guitar riff of AC/DC’s “Hells Bells”. Then there’s a chef hunching over the brick hearth, furiously working

Why is Bistronomy not in Auckland? There’s a high concrete ceiling and blond wood. Plates are inventive, with bursts of pure flavour; the service is wry. “Try many things. Have fun.” We do. 40 Hastings St, Napier, (06) 834 4309, bistronomy.co.nz We l

Over the past five years, I’ve eaten at a lot of Auckland restaurants. From flash-in-the-pan to old favourites, from cheap and cheerful to dégustation, I’ve stuffed my face at many, many eateries in this fine town of ours. Apologies if that comes ac

When you arrive at Pasture, the door is locked. You pull at the handle again, just to be sure, but it’s definitely locked. Then you notice the sign: “Doors Open 5.45pm & 8.15pm”. And they do. At precisely 5.45 or 8.15pm, you hear a click and the door

With just one sip of a Negroni, you’re joining an exclusive, century-old club, from the noble to the famous. A recipe created in 1919, the magic ingredient in this iconic drink is Campari, one of the world’s most loved bitter spirits, known for its r

I remember sitting in an Auckland fine-diner around this time last year (a bit pissed, admittedly), trying to avoid making eye contact with my friend as our waiter earnestly ran through the menu cover to cover, as if he was helping us select a coffin

Kimchi is Korean soul food. Napa cabbage ferments in gochugaru, garlic, ginger, sea salt and fish sauce until delightfully pungent, spending a couple of days out in room temperature to develop its complex flavours. It’ll usually make an appearance on

Most weekends in winter, I start cooking about two and finish about eight, with breaks for my children’s dinner-bath-book-bed, and then I go to bed early, safe in the knowledge that the family is fed for the following week with curry, soup, and ideal

It started with Queen Victoria. In 1972, Auckland’s Gay Liberation Movement gathered around her statue in Albert Park,taping messages to her base like“Camp comes out” and “Better blatant than latent”. It was the first action in a new, more forthright

I was 17 when my mother made this silk voile dress (02) for my debutante ball at the Town Hall. I went to St Mary’s College in St Marys Bay. The dress was pretty untraditional at the time. I was in love with Mary Quant. I wanted the neckline to be mu

All hail Auckland Art Gallery for the exhibition and remarkable accompanying publication Frances Hodgkins: European Journeys! This year is the 150th anniversary of the birth of Hodgkins, New Zealand’s most internationally fêted early-20th-century mo

“I have an endless fascination about my ability to see myself. I feel like I try really hard to catch myself at that… I suppose I’ve come to regard myself with a kind of affectionate suspicion.” In a telephone call on vacation in Idaho Springs, Colo

Richard Cripps, the owner of award-winning kitchen design studio, Kitchens By Design, strongly believes in the need for good design in our lives, particularly in a complex, multifunctional space such as the kitchen, and that an important component of

Situated in Auckland’s sun-drenched art and university district at 9 Princes St, The International is a new inner-city apartment development which will redefine luxury living in the CBD with its stunning views, modern living areas and world-class ame

With the sleek marbled bar on one side mixing delicious cocktails and the vast ocean on the other, it’s truly the best of both worlds. Each table at Bellini is elegantly placed to lend guests privacy, curtained in by knotted ropes. Settle into a plus

Artificial-intelligence optimists have, for the past couple of years, had to skirt delicately around the giant turd the Chinese government dropped smack in the middle of their collective living room. China’s social-credit system — a mega-mechanism f

“When he was a boy he’d visited the museums and looked with patriotic pride at the paintings of famous cavalry charges, last stands and glorious victories. It had come as rather a shock, when he later began to participate in some of these, to find th

A22-year-old woman taps her fingers distractedly on a kitchen table in small-town America and, in a burst of self-loathing energy, leaves for New York City. That’s Tess, who bears a startling resemblance to the main character in Alita: Battle Angel,