News

People's Choice Awards 2012 Winners

Sun 8th Jul 2012 03:28PM by CJD

Unlike many other awards that get offered, the DineOut People's Choice Awards are based purely on your reviews from July 2011 until the end of June 2012. The judging panel isn't a known group on a known date, they are you and your everyday visits to restaurants up and down the country. It's not just one good meal they need to pull off, it's a whole year of excellence! A tough ask, so winners of the DineOut People's Choice Awards have shown themselves to be consistently fantastic.

Check out the 2012 winners here

Update: Some more info, and notable mentions:

Our (your!) gold medal winner was Sidart who was a silver award winner last year and in the last 12 months has gained a bit of a following, and after 41 reviews has a score of 9.1/10! It is not often we see such a consistent restaurant, even more rare that it's consistently good! MVENOM has taken a shine to them and has placed a few reviews herself, but summed them up in a single line: "They are cooking to bring joy and you can taste it."

In the silver category we have some regulars, like Merediths scooping their 3rd silver in a row, French Cafe being bumped off their top spot for the first time, White House stepping up their game from their bronze last year, St Germain grabbing another silver amongst earthquakes and relocation a year ago, and Black Olive who have also gained in popularity since last year, and is one of the restaurants who I have personally heard great things about from friends and family and deserves a lot more praise than it currently receives!

First time winners of the DineOut People's Choice Awards include Bracu, The Grill, Depot, Ancestral, La Bella Italia, Martin Bosley's, Pizzeria Napolia, Restaurant 88, Soprano Italian Caffe, Bamboozle, Kinj and Malabar.
Cook'n With Gas stays in the medals despite a very difficult year, as does The Grove, and Bodhi Tree also seems to have risen from the earthquake ashes stronger than before.
Charlie Bill in Wellington saw me and Hugh dine there recently, and I can vouch for their deserved success here, and hope to see them gain even more success in the coming year!
However, special praise has to go to Cookai Japanese Restaurant in Christchurch. They have 13 reviews and a score of 8.3/10, but have only been open in this location for about 6 months! To get on the winners podium after just 6 months is a spectacular feat, and one which we hope they build on in the future.