MEDIA RELEASE
Friday November 26, 2010

Auckland’s Best Revealed

Metro magazine’s annual Best of Auckland issue hits the streets on Monday (November 29), declaring nearly 200 winners from the city’s worlds of food and drink, nightlife, fashion, media, arts and culture, retail and more.

The question usually on most people’s lips: who are the sexiest Aucklanders? Metro gives the awards to actor Antony Starr from Outrageous Fortune and restaurateurs Damaris and Renee Coulter from Coco’s Cantina – and has a full two-page photo, with them all dressed up, to show why.

For the first time, the magazine has brought together many of the winners for a series of group photos, each one shot on location in an outstanding venue. At La Cigale market, “best food guy” Simon Gault rubs shoulders with the Vietnamese chef from the Ponsonby Food Hall, and other food winners. On the construction site of Q Theatre, arts Dan Arps and others line up with actor Siobhan Marshall from Outrageous Fortune. In Britomart’s Made boutique, NZNTM winner Danielle Hayes, now a proud Aucklander, shares the spotlight with graphic design whizz Dean Poole from Alt Group and others.

“We’re really pleased at the way these group portraits came out,” says Metro editor Simon Wilson. Many of these people had not met each other before, and certainly no one has ever seen them sharing the stage like this. I think these photos give you a real sense of the strength and variety of top achievement in this city.”

Metro has also introduced a list approach: “Five of the best pickup bars”, for example, and “Four of the best special nights out away from the kids”.

“As usual,” says Wilson , “we looked all over Auckland for our list. And we were very pleased to find quite a lot of the best stuff is happening in places you might not always have expected it. Takapuna, for example, gets several mentions.”

So does Newmarket . Its awards include “Best New Shopping Area”, for the makeover of Teed St and Osborne St , behind the Rialto

Among the other winners: Best Hamburger goes to the Wild Boar Burger at Murder Burger – dislodging Hand Made Burgers from a perch they have owned the last few years. Best Wine Store, meanwhile, went to Caro’s Wines in Parnell – for the seventh year in a row.

For Best Fashion Designer the magazine looked past the big names of Fashion Week to single out Deana Didovich at Ruby. And Best Comedian went to standup maestro and TV funnyman Ben Hurley.

Metro December contains a whole lot of other great reading too, including an expose by Donna Chisholm of the very messy divorce of National Party president Peter Goodfellow, and part two of Simon Wilson’s eye-opening interview with former Waitakere mayor Bob Harvey.

For all that, plus the full list of Best of Auckland winners, restaurant reviews, fashion, satire, books, arts, full entertainment listings and biting commentary on current events, the December Metro is on sale Monday (29 November).

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