About BestAuckland
BestAuckland is an independent guide to the best of Auckland — places to eat, things to do, and the local businesses worth knowing about. Every list on this site is put together by hand. Rankings are editorial and cannot be bought. Some pages carry clearly labelled sponsored placements, which sit outside the editorial Top 10 — see our Advertise page for how that works.
It is one of four city sites in the NZ City Guides network. The same rankings method, the same people, four cities:
- BestWellington — the best of Wellington
- BestRotorua — the best of Rotorua
- BestQueenstown — the best of Queenstown
Who publishes it
BestAuckland is published by Amit Sharma, an Auckland real-estate agent and marketer. His own site — amit.marketing — is where his property and marketing work lives. This is the only link to it on this site; the guides themselves stay independent of it.
Who compiles the lists
Every list on BestAuckland is compiled by Amit Sharma, based in Auckland, in the city these pages cover. There is no outsourced writing team and no scraped content: the person who queues for coffee in Britomart, walks Ponsonby Road on a Saturday and drives out to Henderson for a site visit is the same person who writes and maintains these rankings. Being local matters to how the site works — a list of Auckland cafes written from Auckland can carry the details only a regular would know, like which roastery closes at 2pm and which dumpling house is worth the Dominion Road drive.
How places are chosen
A place earns its spot in three steps. First, we shortlist from its public standing — what customers consistently say in their own reviews, how long it has been trading, and whether locals actually recommend it. Second, we apply editorial judgement: a Top 10 should cover the spread of its category, so a list of restaurants is not ten identical steakhouses and a list of gyms is not ten branches of one chain. Third, before a list is published or re-published we confirm that every entry is still operating at the address shown. We hold no review data of our own and publish no star ratings — each entry links out so you can read the reviews and judge for yourself. No business can pay to enter a Top 10 or to move up one.
How often lists are re-checked
Auckland changes fast — cafes close, restaurants move, new operators open. Lists are re-checked on a rolling basis, and the categories that change most, hospitality especially, are looked at most often. From time to time we run a full venue-by-venue audit of a list, re-verifying every entry against live sources; when that happens the list carries a “Last reviewed” date. Every list page and blog post shows a “Last updated” line directly under its heading, so you can see how fresh the information is before you act on it. If a business on a list closes or changes hands, it is corrected or removed at the next check — sooner if a reader tells us first.
Corrections and listings
Something out of date, closed, or ranked wrongly? Tell us and it gets fixed — a correction is worth more to this site than any listing fee. The fastest route is the contact page, which reaches the person who edits the lists directly. Include the business name and what has changed — a new address, new hours, a closure — and it will be verified and updated. Businesses wanting to be considered can use the advertise page, which is also where sponsorship enquiries go. Sponsorship is always labelled and never changes a ranking.