Best Cuisine

Ponsonby’s Soto has been named the Supreme Winner in the Metro Asian Restaurant Awards 2008.

Metro magazine has launched the awards in association with Asia Downunder in recognition of Aucklanders’ growing love affair with Asian cuisine.

Metro editor Bevan Rapson says the proliferation of Asian restaurants across the city means Aucklanders have a huge choice of places to eat out compared with even just a few years ago. “With so many restaurants for people to choose from, we saw the need for a reliable, thoroughly researched guide covering everything from formal places to inexpensive suburban secrets and food halls.”

Nobody is lukewarm about oysters, especially when they're served raw on the half shell. There are lovers and there are haters.

Still, if an oyster fan ever wanted to try to convert someone squeamish, there's no better place to make that pitch than at Elliott's. As soon as you walk in the door, you have to admire the spectacular 21-foot icy bar heaped with bivalves from chilly Northwest waters. There are up to 60 varieties of four species, their availability depending on the season. Take a seat at the bar to watch champion oyster shucker David Leck do his thing. The results are stunning. Not always in a good way, but more on that in a minute.

It may sound strange that an award-winning Japanese restaurant like Zuma is helmed by someone who is not a qualified sushi chef, but for culinary master and entrepreneur Rainer Becker, the knowledge is more important than the craft.

A mere few weeks away from Zuma's grand opening at The Gate Village, Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), the multi-award-winning restaurant and its celebrity chef have already created a buzz with this city's growing food connoisseurs.