Hillside is an intimate 18-seat restaurant in Thorndon, where owner and head chef Asher Boote turns a small Tinakori Road dining room into a lengthy, carefully paced dinner. The scale matters: this is not a venue built around rapid table turnover or a long list of interchangeable mains. Guests book a set menu, settle in for a sequence of courses and experience a style of fine dining that stays personal, relaxed and closely connected to the people preparing it.
Plants carry the entire menu rather than appearing as alternatives to meat. The kitchen works from what is in season, what local growers can supply, what is ready in Hillside's own garden and what can be responsibly foraged around Wellington. Ingredients may reappear in different forms across the meal, allowing texture, preservation and whole-product use to do as much work as luxury produce. That approach keeps waste low and makes each menu a snapshot of a particular time and place.
There are two ways to experience the set-menu format. The early sitting condenses dinner into bread, appetiser, entrée, main and dessert, while the longer Hillside menu unfolds through snacks, bread, multiple savoury courses, a cleanser, pre-dessert, dessert and petit fours. Exact dishes are deliberately withheld before service because the kitchen writes around what is available. Diners therefore choose the length of the journey rather than selecting a known main course in advance.
Dietary planning is unusually integrated into the experience. A fully vegan menu is always available when requested during booking, and the team assesses other restrictions in advance against the realities of its small kitchen. Drinks follow the same local focus: the list is made entirely from New Zealand producers, wines are selected without animal products, and each dinner can be paired with wine or house-made alcohol-free matches. Sodas and kombucha receive the same attention as the cellar rather than functioning as substitutes.
Address: 241 Tinakori Road, Thorndon, Wellington 6011, New Zealand
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