Newtown, Wellington: A Local's Guide

Newtown is the most diverse suburb in Wellington City, and you can taste it on Riddiford Street in about ten minutes of walking. Ethiopian, Malaysian, Afghan, Sri Lankan, Vietnamese and Indian restaurants sit alongside vintage clothing stores, a cooperative supermarket, a zine shop and some of the best cheap eats in the country. Add Wellington Zoo at one end, Wellington Hospital on the other, a massive weekly community market and a strong live-music scene, and you have a suburb that punches far above its weight for less than a couple of square kilometres.

The Vibe

Newtown is loud, colourful, a little rough around the edges and completely beloved. It sits south of the Basin Reserve, sprawling down Riddiford Street and across into Constable Street, with a mix of brick shopfronts, Edwardian villas, 1960s flats and more recent townhouse developments. The high street is properly lived in, the pubs are proper pubs, and the fruit and veg shop will weigh your coriander without talking to you if that is the kind of day you are having.

The suburb is home to one of the largest Somali, Ethiopian, Indian and Pasifika communities in Wellington, along with a big student and creative contingent. It is a place where you hear five languages on a single walk down the street and where community feeling is actually a thing, not a slogan.

A Quick History

Newtown developed as a working-class suburb from the 1870s, when the city tram line pushed south from the CBD and made the flat Newtown valley suddenly commutable. The tramway is long gone, but the grid of streets it laid out is still there, along with a lot of the original housing. Wellington Hospital opened in the 1880s and has been expanding ever since, and Wellington Zoo, the oldest zoo in New Zealand, opened on Newtown's southern edge in 1906.

Waves of migration have shaped the suburb ever since. Greek and Italian families in the mid-twentieth century, Pacific Island communities from the 1960s, and a steady flow of families from Ethiopia, Somalia, India, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan since the 1990s have turned Newtown into one of the most visibly multicultural communities in the country.

Things to Do in Newtown

Wellington Zoo is the main tourist-facing attraction and genuinely one of the best small zoos you will visit anywhere. It runs excellent conservation programmes, is carbon-neutral, and has a layout that actually lets the animals behave like animals. Good for kids, good for adults, good in the rain.

On the suburb's eastern boundary, Zealandia (technically in Karori but easily reached via Newtown) is the world's first fully fenced urban ecosanctuary and home to tuatara, kaka, tui and a shy flock of kakariki. Combined tickets with the Zoo are available.

Closer to the high street, the weekly Newtown Community Market on Saturday mornings at the Newtown School hall is one of Wellington's best. Cheap flowers, bulk-bin spices, fresh bread, homemade samosas, clothing you will not find anywhere else and always a queue for the coffee cart. The Newtown Festival, held in March, fills the high street with live music, food stalls and something like forty thousand people for an afternoon.

For more of what's on, the Wellington events page tracks the lot.

Food & Drink

Newtown is where Wellington goes for cheap, authentic, unfussy food, and the bar is embarrassingly high. The stretch of Riddiford Street between Rintoul and Constable has at least a dozen restaurants that would be a destination in any other city. Standouts include Abyssinia for Ethiopian, Little India's Newtown sibling, Phoenician Falafel, Roti Chenai for Malaysian and Rasoi for fiery Indian home cooking.

For cafes, Peoples Coffee is a Newtown institution and a fair trade pioneer, Salty Pidgin does some of the best weekend brunch in the city and Baobab runs a short, perfect, East African-influenced menu. For everyday coffee and a proper chat, the counter at Coene's Dairy is hard to beat.

Drinking is more pub than cocktail bar here. The Tasting Room on Riddiford Street is a neighbourhood favourite for craft beer, The Cavern Club underneath is the best tiny live-music room in the city, and a handful of wine bars have appeared in the last few years. For restaurant and bar roundups check Wellington restaurants, Wellington cafes and Wellington bars near me.

Getting Around

Newtown is flat and well-served by buses. The main Metlink route 1 runs from the Railway Station through the CBD, down Riddiford Street and on to Island Bay, coming every few minutes most of the day. The walk from Newtown to Courtenay Place takes about twenty-five minutes if you are in no hurry, fifteen if you are.

Parking is much easier than in the CBD, which is part of why locals are happy to drive in for dinner.

Living in Newtown

Newtown has historically been one of the more affordable central suburbs, though the gap has been closing. Housing is a mix of brick villas, 1930s bungalows, old flats and new medium-density builds. It is popular with students, health workers (thanks to the hospital), young families and anyone who wants to be a flat walk from the CBD without paying Te Aro apartment rents.

The suburb has strong community infrastructure: a residents association, a community centre, the Newtown Community and Cultural Centre, an excellent library, a community garden and a long-running co-op supermarket. Schools in zone include Newtown School, South Wellington Intermediate and Wellington High.

One Last Thing

If Thorndon is the suburb you take your parents to, Newtown is the suburb you take your hungriest friend to. It is loud, it is generous, it is a little bit scruffy and it is one hundred percent Wellington. Come for the zoo, stay for the curry, come back for the market.

Heading down? Check the Wellington weather and our things to do in Wellington page for more ideas.

Know a Newtown spot we have missed? Flick it to us at [email protected] and we will add it to the next update. Steve and Kirstie, WellyBuzz.