Start from 42 curated places around Napier, NZ, then choose the recommendations that fit your guests.
Restaurants & cafés
Mister D
The most distinctive restaurant in central Napier, on Tennyson Street, with a menu of Mediterranean small plates and the now-famous syringe-injected doughnuts for dessert. Bistro by day, dinner restaurant by night. The Napier order most visitors talk about afterward.
Bistronomy
Chef James Beck's degustation-led dining room on Hastings Street, doing the most ambitious cooking in Hawke's Bay. The five- or seven-course menu changes monthly; the wine list digs deep into local Hawke's Bay producers.
Trails & outdoors
Te Mata Peak Lookout Walk
Short steep walk to the 399m razor-back summit lookout over Hawke's Bay and Cape Kidnappers. Drive most of the way up and walk the last 15 minutes, or do the full 90-minute climb from the lower carpark for the earned version.
Cape Kidnappers Walking Track
Twelve kilometres one way along the beach from Clifton to one of the world's largest mainland gannet colonies, with vertiginous mudstone cliffs on one side and the sea on the other. Five to six hours return; entirely tide-dependent.
Things to do
Art Deco Trust Guided Walk
Daily guided walking tours of Napier's Art Deco quarter run by the Art Deco Trust, the charity that has preserved the architecture for fifty years. The 1.5-hour morning walk is the easy way in; the 2.5-hour version covers more ground.
MTG Hawke's Bay Museum
Free combined museum-theatre-gallery on Marine Parade, with the country's best 1931 earthquake exhibition. Two hours of content. The rainy-day plan and the locals' choice.
Landmarks & sights
Art Deco Quarter
Napier was levelled by the 1931 Hawke's Bay earthquake and rebuilt in a four-year burst, leaving the best Art Deco streetscape outside Miami. Tennyson, Emerson and Hastings streets form a tight grid you can walk in an hour. The single reason most visitors come.
Marine Parade
The Norfolk-pine-lined seafront promenade, with the National Aquarium, the Pania of the Reef statue, the Veronica sun bay and a long strip of grass and shingle beach. The town's living room and the orientation point for everything else.