Editor Pick
Spectacular Coffee and Nice Atmosphere
- November 14, 2008
- Rated 4 of 5 by
Red Mezz from Inverness, Scotland
Just around the corner from Hotel SO and about five minutes from Cathedral Square is a great little café called ‘The Honey Pot.’ In a city jam-packed with great restaurants and cafes it can be a little daunting choosing one, and you can’t go wrong here.
With a great wooden interior and exterior of this building, it has a unique and welcoming feel that makes for a great coffee drinking, post card writing atmosphere. The food (they offer a pretty varied and enticing sounding range) isn’t the cheapest in town, and though I can’t vouch for it myself as I only tried their coffee – smelled and looked spectacular. If you’re looking for a midday meal you could do much worse. (I think the average lunch menu price was around $13.)
But if you just want to pop in somewhere for a nice coffee and a bit of repose from all the wandering about the city, this is a great place to stop. Other than being centrally located, it’s very relaxing and with plenty of seating available around the area for it you are in a very social or secluded kind of mood.
The staff were a rather interesting bunch, and though I can’t give them credit for being the best service we received in the city – they certainly added character to the place, and the coffees were nothing to complain about. If you are interested in tattoos, have a chat with these girls, as they each seemed to have a varied array of intriguing body designs.
It’s worth mentioning here that the average coffee in New Zealand runs between $3 and $4. There doesn’t seem to be a price increase for such things being in a city – in the smallest town café I have been to the prices have been a mirror image of what they were in Christchurch. Expect to pay around $3.50 for a flat white coffee or espresso and $4 for a latte or cappuccino.
I heard before we arrived that New Zealand secretly does some of the best coffee in the world and its cafes can rival even Italy for wonderful lattes, which I found very hard to believe and went into very dubiously. But so far it’s been proven again and again and some of the very nicest coffees I’ve had in the world have surprisingly been on the south island of New Zealand. And the Honey Pot was not on the bottom of that list.
I might add, though, that if you are a cappuccino drinker and don’t like lots of chocolate on your coffee, be sure to let them know as they are generous when they sprinkle the bitter dark chocolate across the top.
Another interesting aspect of The Honey Pot which pleased me was their huge selection of local art. The walls are covered with work (all of it for sale) done by local artists. Very, very good local artists as well. There were several pieces I was very tempted to by – so if you are looking for an interesting present or souvenir to bring back you might want to pop in and have a look.
From journal So There's More to Christchurch than Just Great Restaurants...