Zest - Food & Wine Tours


Because the best way to discover a place is through its food, Zest tours help you feel like a local for the day. Described as "warm-hearted encyclopaedias", your personal Zest guide shares the best local tastes – coffee, chocolate, cheese, wine and other regional specialties – with you. Get to know some of our favorite people – coffee roasters, olive growers, winemakers – as you uncover a sense of the real New Zealand through personal connections with locals, and tasting their products.


Walking tours are ideal for compact Wellington. We walk around the vibrant waterfront and into the less travelled, slightly quirky Cuba and Courtenay Quarters. Wellington prides itself on the coffee, café and culinary culture – Zest will show you why. At every stop, we sample house specialties and local favourites.


The peace and beauty of rural Wairarapa is a complete contrast, yet only an hour from the capital city. Small specialist producers of food complement the fine wines of the Martinborough Wine Village, and with Zest you meet and taste some of the best.


Tour Specific

  • Walking Gourmet (9.30am – 1.30pm) features many of Wellington's top taste treats and finishes with a 3 course tasting lunch at one of the city’s best fine dining restaurants (weekdays) or stylish cafes (weekends).
  • Capital Tastes (9.30am – 12noon) suits visitors with less time, and includes all the taste treats of Walking Gourmet, except for lunch. Instead, you receive a bonus voucher to spend in your own time at these two lunch or dinner venues.
  • Greytown Gourmet (9.45am – 1.45pm) is a leisurely stroll through the pretty Victorian town with its boutiques and cafés. We sample local products with owners and producers, finishing with a 3 course tasting lunch matched with Wairarapa wines. Can be a day trip from Wellington.
  • Taste Martinborough (9.30am – 2.30pm) is a driving tour, with selected food and wine tasting highlights from around the green open spaces of the south Wairarapa district. In the Martinborough Wine Village, we meet local winemakers and taste the district’s famous pinot noir and other wines, including a 3 course lunch at an attractive winery café, matched with wines from the very vines you can see.