Sarah & Otis Frizzell's Auckland

This is not a pretentious gallery. It has a bit more soul and funk and the interior is really cool. It feels accessible, as when you walk in, you don’t feel intimidated if you don’t know heaps about art. There are prints from local artists, including Otis. It’s a super cool spot.

The best foodie bookshop in town! I met owner Felicity O’Driscoll through my dinner club. A group of food lovers that get together once every few months to try a new restaurant.

Felicity is so passionate about food that she started her own business selling the best cookbooks from New Zealand and around the world. She seems to know every book and every recipe. It’s a treat to pop-in there whenever we walk past, and it’s also our go-to for gifts for food-loving whānau.

This Chinese restaurant in Sandringham is a once-a-week thing for us. Sometimes it's just take-aways, but other times we’ll get a big gang together and go there for special occasions. We celebrated Otis’s birthday at Tianze last year, and the chef and owner, Levi, brought us a ‘lucky’ noodle bowl - the longer the noodle you pick, the more prosperous and longer life you have.

Levi always shares the background and heritage of each dish. Food connects you to other cultures and I just love that. It’s a language that you don’t have to be fluent in to enjoy and understand. Some of our favourite dishes are the cold fern root noodle salad, fish dumplings, twice-cooked sweet and sour pork, sizzling eggplant stuffed with pork mince, deep fried chilli chicken and the broccoli and garlic. 

A few years ago, Otis and I decided to go on a mission to find waterfalls around Auckland, and discovered that Oakley Creek was only 10 minutes from our house!

We started reading up on the history, and found that they used to take patients from the old mental asylum (now Auckland Uni campus) there to calm them down. It’s the perfect place to go to relax and unwind. Take a picnic and a blanket on a summer’s day - heaven!

There’s a beautiful little native bush walk to the falls. It’s always busy in summer, with kids bombing from the top of the falls and people hanging out. We’ve even joined a local group called ‘Friends Of Oakley Creek’ that does clean-ups and native tree planting.

Western Springs Park and Auckland Zoo are only five minutes walk from our house. We walk around the beautiful park when we need some down time and a re-set. We’ll always hit up the Tip Top Shack for an ice cream and then check out the slippery eels and the ducks.

Running a business doesn’t leave much time to well...run...but we used to be keen runners, and Western Springs is the perfect track for a few laps to let off some steam. Just watch out for the aggressive ducks, that will chase you when they have their babies in tow!

The Urbanaut Brewery in Kingsland is run by a lovely group of people who are passionate about brewing and beer! They will share all their knowledge and passion with you on a brewery tour.

The brewery’s got a kind of neighbourhood vibe.  It feels like sitting in your mate’s living room, except with a giant brewery attached. You’ll sometimes find The Lucky Taco truck amongst the line-up of stellar food trucks outside in the courtyard from Thursday to Sunday.

The MorningCidery is tucked down a little alleyway alongside KIND café, Bo’s dumpling joint and Electric Chicken, so there’s something for everyone. You can go in for a tasting or a beer or cider on tap.

We’re so into cider, we even did a Lucky Taco colab - a habanero ginger cider, which has some serious kick! It just scooped a bronze medal at the 2020 NZ cider awards. For chocolate fans, the Miann Chocolate Factory is just next door. You can watch them making chocolate in incredibly huge churns. The chocolatier, Brian, is a top bloke. New Zealand’s very own Scottish Willy Wonka.

This stunning Bhuddist Temple in Flat Bush has beautiful grounds and there’s also a little gallery/shop in the temple.

We love to combine a visit to the temple with a trip to the Auckland Botanical Gardens. It’s a good mental health day. Just make sure you aren’t rocking a singlet at the temple as no bare shoulders are allowed.

We actually found out about this place through our foodie circles.  The Water Drop café there is home to the BEST laksa we have ever had. And it’s 100% vegan. Go figure. I didn’t think you could make a vegan laksa with that much flavour.

Peter Gordon is back from London and has opened his new venture down at Westhaven Marina. It’s pretty impressive and nobody is doing anything quite like it.

It’s all about local New Zealand and Pasifika ingredients. It’s a café by day, a restaurant by night and a cooking school and a general food hub mecca. There’s a lovely outdoor space for growing fresh produce, with an incredible vista of the marina.

We’re friends with Pete and went down to drop off some Lucky Taco products for the retail showcase. It’s really inspiring what Pete and partner Al are doing with Homeland. It’s not just a restaurant, it’s a way of life - a little foodie cult. But in a non-creepy cult way...

This is one of the last businesses on Ponsonby Road rocking an old school ‘Ponsonby Vibe’. You can browse vinyl and get superb food. There’s a cool courtyard out the back where you can hang, eat, drink beer or cocktails and listen to great music. Or you can sit out the front and watch the world go by. There’s often a DJ playing which makes it feel like a daytime nightclub.