The first MICHELIN Guide to New Zealand recognised nineteen restaurants around Queenstown and Arrowtown, including the only Two Star restaurant in the country. Here is the full list, and how to plan around it.
Queenstown is on the MICHELIN map. The first guide to New Zealand was announced at a ceremony in Auckland on 30 June 2026 — the first time the guide has covered anywhere in Oceania — and it inspected four places: Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and here.
We came out of it well. Nineteen restaurants around Queenstown and Arrowtown were recognised, including the only Two Star restaurant in the country.
One thing to know before you start booking. MICHELIN files the whole Southern Lakes under the heading "Queenstown", so several restaurants on the official list are actually in Wānaka, an hour over the Crown Range. They are good, but they are not a dinner run from here. Everything below is within about twenty minutes of town.
Two Stars: Essence
New Zealand's only Two Star restaurant is here, and it is the first two-star anywhere in Oceania. Essence sits on the hillside at the ROKI Collection with the lake below it, and Paul Froggatt runs the kitchen. The evening tasting menu is called The Journey, and the wine list leans hard into Central Otago Pinot Noir.
Dinner only, Tuesday to Saturday. This is the meal you plan the trip around, and it books out a long way ahead.
One Star: three of them
Amisfield is out at Lake Hayes in a stone building, pouring organic wine off its own vineyard beneath Mount Pisa at Cromwell. There are two quite different ways to eat here: the Cellar Door and Bistro is à la carte from 11.30am, and the Restaurant does one dinner-only tasting menu and nothing else. Both Wednesday to Sunday. The evening is $425 a head and runs about four hours, so do not plan anything after it.
Rātā is the one you can walk to. It has been making Central Otago produce the centre of the menu for years, and it is a few minutes from most central accommodation — no car park to negotiate afterwards.
Sherwood is up on Frankton Road with the lake spread out below. Much of what you eat comes off the kitchen garden or is foraged nearby. Come early enough to have a drink outside first; the garden is part of the point.
Bib Gourmand: good cooking, sensible money
A Bib Gourmand is not a lesser Star. It is a separate award for cooking that is very good and not expensive — which, in this town, is worth knowing about. Three went to restaurants here.
Aosta in Arrowtown takes its name from the alpine valley in northern Italy that sits on the same 45th parallel: same mountains, same seasons, same habit of preserving things through winter. Ben Bayly's kitchen, Northern Italian with a French edge. Bayly's Auckland restaurant Ahi. took a Star in the same guide.
Sundays is out at Frankton in a 1933 church that was moved to the site and restored. Neapolitan pizza on house sourdough, shared plates off the wood-fired oven, a lawn, a playground and a small farm next door. Comfortably the most relaxed thing on this list, and the best of them with children.
The Cow has been going since 1977 in an 1860s stone cowshed down Cow Lane, which makes it the oldest restaurant still running in town. The menu has not changed since opening day. It takes no bookings at all — walk in, and if it is busy, wait by the fire.
MICHELIN Selected: twelve more
The Selected list is everything else the inspectors thought worth including.
In central Queenstown: Botswana Butchery for steak and log fires in Archer Cottage on Marine Parade; Soda for wood-fired Mediterranean sharing plates on Queenstown Bay Beach; Toast & Oak up the checkered stairs on Shotover Street, wine-led, with the Expressions tasting menu; Jervois Steak House on Duke Street; Rodd & Gunn The Lodge on the corner of Rees Street; and True South Dining Room.
Just out of the centre: Nest at Kamana Lakehouse on Fernhill Road, where the whole room faces down the Whakatipu, and The Dining Room at Rosewood Matakauri, ten minutes along the Glenorchy road at Closeburn. Both take bookings from people who are not staying.
Arrowtown and Ayrburn: Bianca by Giovi for handmade pasta on Buckingham Street; Millhouse at Millbrook; and two at the Ayrburn precinct near Lake Hayes — Billy's, Cantonese cooking in the restored Paterson homestead, and The Woolshed.
Planning around it
Six of these are walkable from the centre: Rātā, Botswana Butchery, Soda, Toast & Oak, Jervois and Rodd & Gunn — plus The Cow if you are prepared to wait. That is a decent week without ever starting the car.
The Arrowtown and Lake Hayes cluster sits within about fifteen minutes of itself: Amisfield, Aosta, Bianca, Millhouse, Billy's and The Woolshed. Build a day around Arrowtown and Lake Hayes and you can take lunch at one and dinner at another.
Book ahead for the Starred restaurants, and book a long way ahead through winter and over the Christmas–January peak. Essence and Amisfield in particular are not places you turn up to. The Cow is the opposite problem: you cannot book, so time your arrival instead.
