Flip Grater's Christchurch
I’m the co-owner of Grater Goods Deli, as well as a musician, cookbook author, blogger and activist. My husband and I moved to Christchurch from Paris five years ago, and live with our daughter Anaïs in Welles St in the central city. Food and music have always been my passions, and I toured worldwide and released music for many years. After my daughter was born, I finally found myself with a domestic life - something I’d been missing on tour - and used the opportunity to really explore vegan cooking and food. It was super fun to deep dive into nouveau plant food, and teach the tiny tastebuds of Anaïs as she learned to cook and eat!
Taste and shop The Welder
20-26 Welles Street, Christchurch Central
This urban oasis of healthy food and sustainable shops is in our ‘hood’ and where we spend most of our time when not at work. We’ll grab some coffee and a bite of bread from Grizzly, or pop to Bottle & Stone for some natural tap wine in the sun, Bar Yoku for a sushi taco or our neighbours’s gorgeous wee bar Salut Salut to try some amazing wines. There’s also Sollos artisan homeware and Good For groceries and treats. Definitely worth a visit!
Authentic szechuan at Miss Peppercorns
32 Nayland Street, Sumner, Christchurch
This is my favourite restaurant in Christchurch. Nicole and John are awesome. Nicole has started bringing in some very specific spices and chili varieties to make that authentic szechuan taste. No one else is doing that and nothing else compares in this genre. My picks are the vegan dan dan noodles, the mapo tofu and the pickles.
Sumner Village flavours
15 Wakefield Avenue, Sumner, Christchurch
Over the hill from Lyttelton is Sumner village. First stop has to be Utopia Ice for a dairy-free ice cream. I'm obsessed with their Black Sesame ice cream and if you've got space for two scoops, it pairs awesomely with the Dark Chocolate & Sea Salt sorbet. We lived in Sumner before we moved into the city. The beach is beautiful and the only place in Christchurch that you can have a glass of wine and fries literally on the beach at Beach Bar.
French patisseries from Sweet Soul
126 Cashel Street, Christchurch Central
A super cute wee spot in the city with a selection of gorgeous treats, including some dairy free and vegan options. I recently took Anais here for a very important homeschooling lesson where she learned the French words related to patisserie while eating it!
Explore Sydenham
105 Orbell Street, Sydenham, Christchurch
Sydenham was traditionally an industrial area on the edge of the city centre. Now there are pockets of life. If you're lucky enough to be in town on a Nifty Market weekend - bonus! A visit to Junk & Disorderly is necessary! An antique shop which is home to two secondhand clothing vendors for gorgeous clothes and shoes. The Spirits Workshop is just down the road. They run tours and tastings of gin, whiskey and rum.
Plant-based charcuterie
105 Orbell Street, Sydenham, Christchurch
Next door to Junk & Disorderly is our place, Grater Goods. The weekends are a great time to ask for tastings, do some shopping for gourmet treats and taste some French and Canterbury wines. We do plant-based charcuterie and cheese boards, and the best vegan burgers in town... followed by cheesecake or deconstructed tiramisu. Our KFT (fried tofu) is frighteningly good. I always get a house salad with KFT, ‘cause green leaves plus fried food equals balance!
New Brighton Beach reset
New Brighton, Christchurch
My other favourite place in Christchurch is New Brighton beach, where I grew up and where most of my family live. A place of nostalgia for me and also a place to be calm and reset. It’s a huge expanse of beach with no one else on it - there’s really nowhere like it. As far as seaside spots go, this one is super under-rated.
Vegan ramen at Samurai Bowl
Shop 5/574 Colombo Street, Christchurch Central
This place is an institution. It’s completely unpretentious and the vegan spicy miso ramen is ridiculous. Xinchen took it over a few years ago and she’s just introduced a full vegan menu. She uses some of our products to make a vegan ramen and katsu, which is delicious. Open long hours everyday of the week, it’s a quick easy place that you know you can always go to. We eat there at least once a week!
Shopping in Cashel Square
120 Hereford Street, Christchurch Central
Living centrally means we can wander around and explore new pockets of the city as they develop. Cashel Square off Colombo and Cashel Street is one of those little hidden lanes with two of our favourite shops. Maurz Tane’s Hapa is a perfectly curated space that showcases a lot of local designers, plus homewares, jewellery and books in Te Reo. The city’s favourite bookshop, Scorpio Books, is just down the lane. Anaïs and I love to wander around the lanes - a stop at Hapa for me and then the craft and kid’s book section at Scorpio for her.
Italian-Indonesian street fusion
London Street, Lyttelton, Christchurch
I love the Lyttelton Market! I like to grab a couple of tempeh fritters from Indo Tempeh and stuff them into a Vic’s baguette with a sprig of fresh coriander from Streamside Organics. It's like a Southern Italian-Indonesian fusion sandwich and easy to eat on the run. Anaïs knows all the vendors and they’ve seen her grow from the bump in my stomach to a 5-year-old chatting and tasting everything! Many of her first taste experiences happened at this market.