Welcome to Our Blog Exploring the Best Restaurants and Bars of Queenstown

Hello dear reader and welcome to our new blog dedicated to the exploration of the best places to have a meal and a drink in Queenstown, New Zealand. We are excited about sharing our own experiences of the local restaurants and bars with you and we hope that you too will enjoy the places we recommend to you.

Queenstown is a place of great natural beauty and it draws many tourists every year, which also turned it into one of the hot spots for the top chefs and mixologists in the country, so we felt like there need to be more blogs helping tourists find some lesser-known bars and restaurants that nonetheless have amazing food, drinks, and of course, atmosphere.

In this blog, you will find personally curated articles that either have restaurant or bar recommendations. We will try to include everything for each taste!

After having said that, we decided to dedicate our first post to our beautiful town of Queenstown. Learn more about its history and its biggest tourist attractions here.

Queenstown Summarised

Queenstown was settled by the Māori who believed that the lakes were dug up by the mythical hero and their ancestor Rākaihautū. The Māori gave the area the name Tāhuna, which means shallow bay in their language.

In the 1860’s, William Gilbert Rees and Nicholas von Tunzelmann were the first European people to settle in the area and they soon brought more settlers with them, especially after finding gold.

Tāhuna thus became a mining town and many English and Irish people settled the land and worked as miners. The name Queenstown was chosen by the European settlers in honour of an Irish town of the same name. It’s called Queenstown for Queen Victoria who was the monarch at the time.

Later on, Queenstown massively rebranded and it is now a proper tourist town that offers lots of fun activities to people of all ages. This, however, made it quite attractive to investors, which significantly increased the prices of real estate in the region and it’s now the most expensive place to buy a house in New Zealand.

Things to do in Queenstown

Queenstown is one of the best places for winter sports in the southern hemisphere, so we recommend you visit it during the winter between June and September. You can go skiing and snowboarding and visit the Winter Pride festival (held each September) or the Winter Festival (June), where other winter sports enthusiasts will gather.

In fact, Queenstown is quite popular for its various festivals around the year, which draw many people to the picturesque town. Apart from its two massive winter festivals, there are also the Bike Festival (March or April) and the Jazz Festival (October). Just beware that it’d be quite busy then, so you should book your holiday early.

All in all, Queenstown is mostly famous and visited for its natural beauty, so you can explore the great lakes and mountains and engage in activities associated with them. You can also visit natural parks like the Kiwi Birdlife Park or Paradise where they filmed a lot of scenes for The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film trilogies.

Queenstown is also famous for its wide variety of activities such as snowboarding, whitewater rafting, mountain biking, bungy jumping, hiking, sky diving and paragliding, to name a few. It’s a place for the adventurous at heart, so even if you’re not experienced in any of them, you’ll be tempted to try them if you go there.

Queenstown, despite its busy tourist population, can be quite peaceful as well. There are many secluded beaches and mountain hikes that will allow you to take in the scenery and truly enjoy yourself and nature.

What we are trying to say is that there is something for everyone in Queenstown as long as you seek it. Enjoy your stay here!