Overlooking Waitemata harbor’s expansive blue vista, the White Restaurant at the Hilton Auckland features a cool palette, warm service and delightful meals.

Starting with our first favorite meal of the day, highlights of the breakfast buffet include poached pears with vanilla beans, blueberries with cinnamon sticks and apricots with cardamom pods. These are delicious over the bircher muesli, as are the fresh melon selections.

The coffee is also excellent, but there are a couple of terms you need to know if you’re not from down under: Flat white is the local favorite, which has less milk than a latte, less foam than a cappuccino. Long black is a double shot of espresso with a little hot water, basically a stronger americano.

Lunch favorites (click to see):

• carrot and orange soup with ginger and lime-cured salmon
• seafood on braised fennel with bouillabaisse sauce
• harissa lamb cutlets with sautéed artichokes
• lychee and rosewater brulée with brandy snap wafer (pictured above)
• warm mixed nut pie with lemon myrtle custard and vanilla ice cream
• poached apple trifle with granny smith apple sorbet and calvados

Arriving late afternoon at the Bellini Bar downstairs, we are pleased to note that nothing is wasted — the cocktail menu features the “poached pear and vanilla julep”, which is basically breakfast muddled with torn mint and bourbon. As a blueberry girl, I’m partial to “Russian spring punch”: fresh blackberries and blueberries shaken with 42below vodka, freshly squeezed lemon juice and a hint of sugar, topped with Cloudy Bay Pelorus.

Of course, not everything is perfect. There’s wi-fi at the bar, but you have to pay an extortionate fee of NZ$14 per hour or $29 per day. To add insult to injury, if you’re staying at the hotel you have to pay again in the rooms (where wi-fi is not available) to connect via ethernet. Perhaps it’s for the best… otherwise you could end up drunk video iChatting your friends in Calcutta out loud from the bar.

White Restaurant & Bellini Bar
at the Hilton Auckland
Princes Wharf, 147 Quay Street
Auckland, New Zealand 1010
+64 (09) 978 2000