Frank Gehry was reputedly so taken with Wellington - New Zealand's capital city - that he offered to design a Bilbao-esque art gallery for the city, a building that would have transformed its famously blustery waterfront. With its crumbling 1970s buildings, the New Zealand capital was in desperate need of an architectural saviour. And so it remains, Gehry's offer having apparently been rejected. Apart from the Beehive, the colloquial name for the parliament building, the entire city looks as though it might be dismantled, loaded on a truck and reassembled on some less distinguished site - a common practice in New Zealand as it turns out. And invariably, the first-time visitor arrives to find a grey, windy city huddled above a southern sea. But Wellington does have a sunnier side, manifested by its determined attempt to shake off the dowdy, conservative image, reinventing itself first as a city of gourmands (it has more bars, restaurants and cafés per head than New York) and latterly as the home of New Zealand's hobbit-led film industry. By basing himself here, Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson has guaranteed the future of 'Welliwood', at least in the short-term: work on his next project, a $US200-million remake of the King Kong classic, is already underway.

ATRIUM TOWERS EXECUTIVE APARTMENTS
154 The Terrace (00 64 4 931 1000; www.atriumtowers.co.nz). Book a self-catering room here. Choose from studio, one- or three-bedroom apartments. The building has underground parking and is within easy walking of cafés and restaurants. £

BOOKLOVERS B&B
123 Pirie Street, Mount Victoria (00 64 4 384 2714; www.bbnb.co.nz). For a complete change of pace, venture up the hill a bit. Booklovers B&B is an Edwardian villa with a literary flavour. There are four rooms available, plenty to read and off-street parking. The city centre is within walking distance. £

INTERCONTINENTAL
Corner of Grey and Featherstone Streets (00 64 4 472 2722; www.wellington.intercontinental.com). The huge InterContinental is regarded as the best five-star hotel. £

MERCURE WELLINGTON
345 The Terrace (00 64 4 3859829; www.mercure.com). From the same school of architecture as the InterContinental, the hotel offers good prices but more limited facilities. £

THE WELLESLEY
2-8 Maginnity Street (00 64 4 474 1308; www.thewellesley.co.nz). Those looking for something more intimate should check into this bijou hotel in the heart of Wellington's business district. The neo-Georgian hotel offers an 'English' restaurant, cocktail bar and games room. £

A generous exchange rate means that even the best Wellington restaurant will not break the bank.

ANISE
161-163 Cuba Street (00 64 4 381 2212). The nouvelle-Thai Anise is currently turning heads; chef Paul Blain trained under David Thompson (who runs Nahm in London).

BOULCOTT ST BISTRO RESTAURANT & WINEBAR
99 Boulcott Street (00 64 4 499 4199). Across town, Boulcott St Bistro Restaurant & Winebar is something of a Wellington institution for its traditional fare in a pleasant, clubby atmosphere.

BOUQUET GARNI RESTAURANT & BAR
100 Willis Street (00 64 4 499 1095). Another firm favourite housed in a chic little building hedged in by office blocks. The bar is a great evening rendezvous. Vim Rao is Wellington's reigning queen of cuisine. Born in Lenggong, a small town on the west coast of Malaysia, Rao came to New Zealand 20 years ago and settled in Wellington, where she trained as a chef. 'Food is in my blood,' she says. 'My mother was my first teacher.' Rao's first business venture, a small Malaysian eatery called Kopi, is still going strong. Since then she has added Bouquet Garni Restaurant and Bar (housed in a restored Victorian building) and Rouge, a stylish restaurant and cocktail bar that opened in May this year. The Malaysian entrepreneur believes Rouge taps into Wellington's growing taste for all things cosmopolitan. She is in the novel position of having helped to transform Wellington's rather conservative eating scene - and is reaping the rewards. 'My God, you have no idea what Wellington used to be like,' she laughs. 'By 5pm in the evening everyone would have gone home. Today, people here have such a different attitude to life - they are willing to entertain new ideas and new experiences.' Coming from South-east Asia, Rao found that her biggest problem was being able to source fresh herbs, spices and other more exotic ingredients. Now almost everything is available locally. 'Herbs are incredibly important to me,' she says. 'That's why I called the restaurant Bouquet Garni: it's all about the use of herbs and spices in combination with New Zealand's finest ingredients.' A glance at the Bouquet Garni menu reveals its owner's commitment to modern New Zealand cuisine, with a strong French bias (pork, lamb's brain, tuna and sweetmeats all figure). The wine list is encyclopaedic. Despite her great success, Wellington's most charismatic restaurateur has no intention of slowing down. 'I really don't think I would be satisfied doing anything else,' says Rao. 'I hope I'll still be going strong in another 20 years.'

CAFE BASTILLE
16 Majoribanks Street (00 64 4 482 9559). Been a while since you had coq au vin? The 1980s will come flooding back when you walk in here, the fiefdom of a national treasure, chef Mark Limacher. Apart from the coq au vin, there's pork sausage, potato dumplings with sage butter and pan-fried rabbit liver. The dessert menu should be X-rated. It says something about Wellington that its leading sommelier is a Malaysian-born law graduate who knew little about wine until he went to university in Dunedin - handy, as it turns out, for the vineyards around Queenstown. The fact that Stephen Wong is a softly spoken 23-year-old with a passionate interest in French wine (a country he has yet to visit) is equally impressive. Wong is presently sommelier in residence at Café Bastille, a bastion of French gastronomy where the wine list is divided up under familiar headings: Bordeaux, Rhône, Burgundy, Alsace and so on. Even its house wine is French. 'New World wines are very beautiful, but it seems they taste better on their own. For a great marriage of wine and food, I tend to swing towards Europe,' he says. Apart from his regular gig at Café Bastille (and its sister property the Roxburgh), Wong is in demand with the numerous cocktail bars springing up in town. Having conquered Wellington, his next ambition is to spend some time in France, fully immersing himself in the winemaking tradition of the Old World. 'I'm desperately making friends with every visiting French person at the moment,' he jokes. 'You never know, one of them might have a brother or uncle in the wine trade.'

CITRON
270 Willis Street (00 64 4 801 626). You might call Rex Morgan the Pavarotti of the Wellington food scene, he has won just about every culinary award that New Zealand can throw at him. Morgan grew up around food: his father was a cook in the New Zealand Army. His mother was a pivotal influence, too. 'I have a Maori background,' he explains. 'My dad had 15 brothers and sisters, so we were always getting together for weddings, funerals and birthdays, and always around food. And my mother is a great cook.' Since it opened in early 2003, Citron has become Wellington's most talked-about restaurant. Des Britton, the city's leading food critic, chose Citron as his restaurant of the year in 2003; Rex Morgan was named chef of the year. Even by Wellington standards, Citron is small, seating 28 people in a charming but far-from-luxurious two-storey house outside the city's main restaurant district. Heavily influenced by Tetsuya's in Sydney, Morgan offers a number of set-course meals, including his famous dégustation menu which features specialities such as crayfish terrine, Wairarapa eel, five-spice pork belly and lamb sweetbreads. The wine list is equally impressive. 'This restaurant is a chef's dream,' he says. 'I'm only serving small portions, so that I can source the very best ingredients for them. You can spend that little bit extra on the olive oil and that sort of thing. I've really designed the menu around what I want to cook.'

ICON
Cable Street (00 64 4 801 5300). For something more cutting edge (and with a water view) try Icon at the Te Papa Cultural Centre. Executive chef Peter Thornley is a true pioneer of Kiwi cuisine, mixing Asian, Pacific and European traditions.

KOPI MALAYSIAN RESTAURANT & ESPRESSO BAR
103 Willis Street (00 64 4 499 5570). For a change of pace, Kopi Malaysian Restaurant & Espresso Bar is a bustling, friendly hang-out, specialising in satay, rending, curries, roti chena and laksa, all modestly priced.

LOGAN-BROWN RESTAURANT & BAR
Corner of Cuba and Vivian Street (00 64 4 801 5114). Logan-Brown is without doubt the poshest restaurant in Wellington, but don't be surprised if Alister Brown, its co-owner and much-awarded chef, picks up the phone to take your booking. Despite the opulent setting in an 1920s bank building (the main restaurant and bar is housed in an octagonal room decorated with Corinthian columns), Brown likes to keep things as unstuffy as possible. 'I suppose you'd call what we do fine dining,' he says. 'But we detest that phrase.' Logan-Brown Restaurant & Bar attracts Wellington's political movers and shakers, as well as a younger, groovier crowd, attracted by the cocktails, wine by the glass and platters of bar-food, plus live jazz. 'We wanted this to be a cool place to hang out and meet people,' says Brown, 37, the son of a farmer. 'Sometimes Kiwis can be too fond of pretension and formality.' A similarly laid-back attitude is evident in the menu, which consists of classic dishes done the Logan-Brown way: the signature dish is paua ravioli - local abalone served with fresh basil, coriander and lime beurre blanc. According to Brown, the style of food is distinctly New Zealand without the triteness of Pacific Rim cuisine. Brown, who has worked in North America and Europe (where he cooked for the New Zealand ambassador in Brussels), is happy to be part of such a vibrant culinary scene. 'What has happened here in the past 20 years is quite remarkable. We're a small nation that wants to learn and be the best,' he says. 'I've seen a lot of the world, and we're just beginning to understand what we have here.'

ROXBURGH BISTRO
18 Majoribanks Street (00 64 4 385 7577). For something less weighty try this bistro.

CAFES

As the caffeine capital of New Zealand, Wellington has no shortage of good cafés - with devoted followings.

CAFFE L'AFFARE
27 College Street (00 64 4 385 9748). This is a golden oldie. Try the pesto-and-mozzarella rolls with crispy bacon.

EMPORIO
11 Tory Street (00 64 4 382 8116). For a mid-morning heart starter, Emporio serves 'healthy and interesting' food.

PRAVDA CAFE
107 Customhouse Quay (00 64 4 801 8858). For a slice of Cold War nostalgia, drop into Pravda Café, which, as well as coffee, breakfast and snacks, has an impressive bistro menu.

DRINKING

A new bar seems to open just about every week in Wellington. Some of the newer arrivals include:

BEAU MONDE LOUNGE BAR
82 Tory Street (00 64 4 384 1177). A cosy upstairs bar that specialises in Australian, New Zealand and French wines and has a good cocktail list, stylish bar snacks and live music on Thursdays.

MATTERHORN
106 Cuba Street (00 64 4 384 3359). This is favoured by late-night bohemian types, and serves good coffee, cocktails, wines and European bar food.

THE JET BAR
36 Courtenay Place (00 64 4 803 3324) attracts fashionable girls and advertising types. It's stylish, flirty and desperately hip.

PUBS

Given the bar scene, it's easy to overlook Wellington's pubs, some of which are pretty good. Two of the best are The Bristol (131-133 Cuba Street; 00 64 4 385 1147) and The Courtenay Arms (26-32 Allen Street, Courtney Place; 00 64 4 385 6908). The latter is ideal for anyone feeling homesick - it has a good selection of British and Irish beers on tap. Beer aficionados will enjoy The Malthouse (47 Willis Street; 00 64 4 499 4355), which serves more than 30 types of naturally fermented New Zealand beer. It also serves inexpensive meals, such as venison pie and pork fillet.

OTHER FOODIE FAVOURITES

Wellington's most popular tourist attractions, such as Parliament House, Te Papa Tongarewa (the Museum of New Zealand), the Maritime Museum and the cable car to Kelburn - are well documented, and you can find more information from the tourist office (www.newzealand.com/travel).

Foodies will also find much to distract them. Curiously, Wellington has no central produce market, but Moore Wilson's Wholesale Cash & Carry (corner of Tory and College Streets; 00 64 4 384 9906) is a respectable alternative. The deli and fresh food store has a cornucopia of delicacies from around the world. Those with a coffee fixation should check out Beanstore (7 Woodward Street; 00 64 4 472 5188; (www.coffeesupreme.com), which serves 14 freshly roasted premium coffee in premises rich with their aroma. Those looking for a more hands-on food experience should enrol at the Ruth Pretty Cooking School (41 School Road, Te Horo, Kapiti Coast; 00 64 6 364 3161; www.ruthpretty.co.nz) in Springfield, about an hour's drive from Wellington. The purpose-built school is located on a beautiful 25-acre property on the Kapiti Coast. Classes run most weekends from March to November. Pretty is a legendary figure in New Zealand and her classes attract pupils from around the world. The school can arrange accommodation and transfers from Wellington.

CITY CENTRE
Wellington's city centre is compact and easy to cover on foot, with most of the major attractions within a two-kilometre radius. The heart of the city stretches from the train station in the north to Cambridge and Kent Terraces at the eastern end of Courtenay Place, taking in the waterfront along the way, while the central business district runs along The Terrace and Lambton Quay. The latter is also the principal shopping thoroughfare. The main districts for eating, drinking and entertainment are Courtenay Place, Cuba Street, Willis Street, and down to the waterfront at Queens Wharf.

CIVIC SQUARE AND THE WATERFRONT
The thoroughly modern Civic Square, behind the visitor centre, is a good place to start your sightseeing before making the short walk to the waterfront and Wellington's star attraction, the Museum of New Zealand (Te Papa Tongarewa). A popular venue for outdoor events, Civic Square was revamped in the early 1990s by Wellington architect Ian Athfield and is full of interesting sculptures, with a couple of buildings worth a quick visit.

MUSEUM OF NEW ZEALAND
About 500m east of the bridge, on Cable Street, is the Museum of New Zealand or Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington's star attraction and the country's first national museum. A major project occupying a purpose-built five-storey building right on the waterfront, the museum opened in early 1998. You'll need at least half a day to explore this celebration of New Zealand's people, land and cultures, all brought to life with ambitious state-of-the-art technology aimed at adults and children.

THE BOTANIC GARDENS AND CABLE CAR
Wellington's Botanic Gardens form a huge swathe of green on rolling hills high above the city to the west and make for a pleasant hour or two's distraction. There are main entrances on Glenmore Street and Upland Road, but the best way to get there is via the short yet scenic cable-car ride to Kelburn. There's a lookout at the top, just inside the Botanic Gardens, offering spectacular views over the city, brought into focus by coin-operated binoculars. The highlight of the gardens and their most visited section is the Lady Norwood Rose Garden. The fragrant garden blooms throughout the summer, with 300 varieties of roses laid out in a formal wheel shape around a fountain.

WELLINGTON HARBOUR
It's impossible to come to Wellington and ignore the lure of the water. Wellington Harbour and its reliable winds offer excellent sailing experiences. Another option is to take the ferry to Somes Island, which has long held spiritual significance to Maori and has magnificent views across the harbour.

AIRPORT
Wellington International Airport is about 5km southeast of the city centre and has one terminal shared by Qantas and Air New Zealand.

AIRLINES FROM THE UK
Air New Zealand (0800 028 4149; www.airnewzealand.co.uk) flies from London's Heathrow to Wellington International Airport.

There are things to see and do all year round. The warmer months (November to April) are busiest, but also the most pleasant.

Visit www.wellingtonnz.com