There was a time when telling a restaurant you were vegetarian might have resulted in a slightly apologetic mushroom risotto. Or a salad. Possibly both. Thankfully, those days are long gone.
One of the questions we’re regularly asked before guests join one of our food tours in New Zealand is: “I’m vegetarian. Will there be enough for me to eat?”
The answer is a very enthusiastic yes.And, more importantly, we don’t see vegetarian guests as a problem to solve. For us, showing off New Zealand’s plant-based food isn’t a chore, an inconvenience or a case of quietly asking the kitchen to remove the chicken from something. Our food tours in New Zealand are another opportunity to show you just how exciting the food scene in Aotearoa has become.
We might be famous internationally for lamb, beef and seafood, but New Zealand also produces extraordinary fruit and vegetables. Our seasons give us asparagus, kūmara, sweetcorn, tomatoes, mushrooms, brassicas, stone fruit, berries, citrus, avocados and all manner of wonderful things that chefs can get terribly excited about. Add native ingredients such as kawakawa, horopito and pikopiko, beautiful local olive oils, artisan cheeses, sourdough, nuts, seeds, grains and ferments and suddenly there’s an enormous playground for a clever chef.
And clever chefs are exactly what New Zealand has plenty of. The best vegetarian cooking isn’t about creating a meat dish and taking the meat away. It’s about starting with the vegetable and asking: how good can we make this?
That is when things get interesting and this is important to us. When you book one of our New Zealand food tours and tell us you’re vegetarian, we’re not immediately reaching for a list of “vegetarian restaurants”.
We want to take you to great restaurants.
Restaurants with talented chefs, brilliant producers and a genuine sense of place. Restaurants we love and places we think tell part of the story of their city. Some will be completely plant-based. Others might be famous for their seafood or meat but have vegetable dishes that are every bit as exciting.
New Zealand’s restaurant scene has become increasingly confident about putting vegetables centre stage. Auckland now even has a vegetarian restaurant, East, recognised in the 2026 MICHELIN Guide, a pretty good indication that plant-based dining here deserves to be taken seriously.
But awards aside, what excites us is seeing chefs treat vegetarian food with exactly the same creativity and attention as everything else leaving their kitchen. Because that’s how it should be. To understand New Zealand food today, you have to look beyond the traditional idea of “Kiwi food”.
We are a gloriously multicultural country. Our cities have been shaped by people and flavours from China, India, Korea, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Pacific Islands, the Middle East and all over Europe.
For vegetarian diners, that makes eating here particularly interesting, and it is one of the reasons a vegetarian food tour is such a delicious way to discover New Zealand beyond the obvious sights.
You might find yourself eating handmade dumplings one minute and locally made cheese the next. There could be smoky eggplant, fermented chilli, charred cabbage, beautiful tofu, kūmara, fresh sourdough, native herbs or something involving a mushroom that makes even the most committed carnivore at the table start stealing from your plate.
And that’s before we’ve got anywhere near dessert.
We’re certainly not alone in thinking New Zealand is a brilliant place to travel as a vegetarian, either. Divy Jain from Travel + Leisure Asia has just published an article on her vegetarian journey through New Zealand, which is well worth a read if you’re planning a trip and wondering just how much there is to discover beyond the old stereotypes of lamb and seafood.
Wellington has embraced vegetable-led cooking particularly enthusiastically, making it a brilliant city to explore on a vegetarian food tour in Wellington.
Hillside Kitchen has built its reputation around seasonal, locally grown and foraged ingredients, while the city has everything from completely plant-based Italian food to vegan bakeries producing pastries that make you wonder why butter was ever considered essential. Wellington’s chefs are also wonderfully good at working with what is growing around them.
That sense of season and place is something we love introducing to visitors because it tells you far more about New Zealand food than simply ticking off a list of famous dishes. Auckland is where New Zealand’s extraordinary cultural diversity really comes into its own, and our Auckland food tours for vegetarians allow us to show off that diversity one plate at a time.
You can eat your way through Asia without leaving the city, and vegetarian diners are particularly well catered for. East serves a completely vegetarian modern Asian menu, much of which is vegan, while restaurants across the city are increasingly creating dedicated vegetarian and vegan dishes rather than offering a token alternative.
Then there are our markets, bakeries, cheesemakers, chocolatiers and growers.
Auckland’s plant-based food story doesn’t need to announce itself as vegetarian at every turn. Sometimes it’s simply an extraordinary tomato at the height of summer, beautiful mushrooms cooked over fire, handmade dumplings or a piece of local cheese that stops the conversation for a minute.
Those moments are exactly what we’re looking for.The same philosophy follows us around New Zealand. If you’re searching for vegetarian food tours in New Zealand, the important thing to know is that vegetarian travellers don’t need a completely separate experience to eat brilliantly here.
Whether we’re eating our way through Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin or Queenstown, we’re looking for people doing interesting things with New Zealand ingredients.
Christchurch has an incredible connection to the produce of Canterbury. Dunedin has fantastic small producers, bakeries and a food culture with strong Scottish roots alongside an increasingly modern restaurant scene. Queenstown and Central Otago give us beautiful stone fruit, vegetables, cheeses and, conveniently, some rather excellent wine to drink alongside them.
Wherever we are, vegetarian guests don’t get the lesser version of the tour. Our New Zealand culinary tours are about discovering local restaurants, regional ingredients, producers and the people behind the food, and vegetarian guests are very much part of that story.
They get their version of the tour. And we want it to be just as delicious. This might actually be our favourite bit. Some of the biggest reactions we get to plant-based dishes come from guests who aren’t vegetarian at all. Because good food is good food. A perfectly cooked piece of cauliflower doesn’t need to pretend to be a steak. A mushroom doesn’t need to become a burger. Kūmara doesn’t need to apologise for the absence of meat.
When brilliant ingredients are treated properly, seasoned properly and cooked by people who understand flavour, nobody sits there thinking about what is missing. They’re too busy eating.
Tell us when you book. Tell us if you’re vegan. Tell us about allergies and dietary requirements too.
We work closely with the restaurants, chefs and producers on our tours and we want everyone around our table to have a fantastic experience.
Just don’t arrive expecting three hours of lettuce.
So if you’re planning a trip and looking for a vegetarian food tour in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin or Queenstown, talk to us. Vegetarian food in New Zealand isn’t something we have to accommodate. It’s something we’re genuinely rather proud to show off.
And there’s a very good chance that somewhere along the way, the carnivores will want a bite of yours.
Come hungry. We’ll take care of the rest.
