JW Marriott Auckland officially reopens after $30m renovation: New look reviewed
There's a living moss wall providing a connection with nature, even when you're inside, and striking black and white etch-style artwork of a Waitākere forest scene at the back of the bar. Both make an impression.
Rooms: There are 271 rooms and 15 suites across 10 floors. The top-tier accommodation is the 133sq m Presidential Suite, with features including a private balcony, a large dining table designed for hosting guests, and a living area with a fireplace.
We were in a 66sq m one-bedroom Executive Suite on the 10th floor.
An abundance of windows across three sides of the suite give views of differing cityscapes – we could see the Sky Tower, city terraces and rooftops, and out to the harbour.
The sitting room and bedroom both have large flat-screen TVs, with coffee tables, sofa, dining table and chairs, free-standing lamps, and a leather stool with a foot rest in the living area.
Blonde wood laminate floors are made cosier with stylish rugs. The muted cream, grey, white, and black colour palette is visually calming, while large photographic artworks of NZ scenery and ceramic vases add some style.
The one flaw I experienced was that the curtains let light escape at their top – unusual for hotels these days, which usually offer complete blackout blinds for peaceful sleeps. Fortunately, silk eye masks were provided at turn-down service.
Bathroom: It's relatively small compared with the suite space, but large enough to house a walk-in shower, bath tub, single vanity unit with ring-light mirror, and separate toilet.
Toiletries are Aromatherapy Associates London brand.
During our stay, it took a long time to bring hot water through to the shower and basin taps, which meant a lot of water wastage.
Food & drink: Formerly a Thai restaurant, the hotel's flagship dining venue is now called Trivet and is helmed by executive chef Wallace Mua. It opened about nine months ago and has received great reviews – including from Viva's Jesse Mulligan. On special occasions, book a 'Front Row' seat for dinner; a 90-minute dining experience seated at a counter in the heart of the restaurant, with Mua and team cooking right before you. You'll dine on bespoke mini-versions of some favourite Trivet menu items, and might even get to taste-test dishes Mua is trialling for a new menu (he changes them every three months).
We loved chatting to Mua over courses – he even invited us out of our seats to help shuck oysters and fillet fish. Dishes were wine matched by Argentinian sommelier Tony Suarez. It was fun, interactive, casual and unique, and we left incredibly full and happy.
Trivet also serves breakfast, with either an a la carte menu or an extensive buffet.
We enjoyed innovative cocktails at Forum bar, thanks to Chilean expert mixologist Vanessa. During the day, Forum serves barista coffee and baked goods from Wild Wheat.
In-room food and drink amenities included a Breville barista-style Nespresso machine with milk frother, and a mini bar stocked with Tea Total herbal teas, exclusive edition craft beers by Urbanaut Brewing and half-bottles of wine.
Facilities: Valet parking is available. There's free, fast Wi-Fi throughout the hotel. In-suite facilities included TVs with Chromecast, plus in-built streaming apps, and a bag of Technogym equipment (yoga mat, foam roller, resistance bands).
The Wellness Centre on the 11th floor has state-of-the-art Technogym equipment, a 14m pool, cold plunge pool, hot tub, steam room and sauna, with floor-to-ceiling windows.
In the neighbourhood: Commercial Bay, the Ferry Building, the Viaduct, Wynyard Quarter, and Queen St are all within easy walking distance, and there's the Britomart public transport hub nearby for everything else.
Family friendly: Larger rooms can fit a 'teepee tent' the kids will love, and a chaise longue that can double as a bed for children. Adjoining rooms are available.
JW Marriott hotels offer the Family by JW programme; curated experiences for travellers from all generations. The Auckland property has Celestial Dreams, a bespoke astronomy experience based on Maramataka, the Māori lunar calendar; and Birds & Beaks, an educational session about weaving harakeke and other nature-based activities. Bookings are essential at least seven days before arrival. The hotel also has a dedicated book menu featuring books by New Zealand authors, including Sally Sutton, Tim Tipene, Nan Blanchard, and Kat Quin.
Accessibility: Accessible guest rooms have widened doorways, roll-in showers, grab rails, and lowered light switches. There is step-free access throughout the property. The reception and dining areas have flexible seating arrangements and space for mobility devices, and there's designated accessible parking. Staff are trained to sensitively assist all guests, wherever required.
Sustainability: You can opt out of towel and linen changes during your stay. There were no plastics in the mini bar, but the provided amenities included dental and vanity kits in plastic wrappers.
The hotel's rooftop has a herb garden and rescue bee hives. There are still and sparkling water stations on every floor for refilling drink bottles.
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NZ Herald
an hour ago
- NZ Herald
Jesse Mulligan Auckland Restaurant Review: Sa-On In Henderson Is Something Different, And Quite Exciting
From instant noodles cascading over their plastic pot, to 'pink nipple milk', this Thai restaurant is worth checking out. I eat a lot of Northeastern Thai food because Isaan Thai on Hobson St is my emergency lunch stop. I presume everybody has a place like this near their office – you forget to bring a sandwich from home, you don't have time to hike to the salad shop, and so you pick up your mobile phone and the takeaway menu and proceed to disgrace yourself. Not that there's anything inherently unhealthy about Thai food, it's just that one dish never seems quite enough but eating two makes you feel like taking a shame-nap afterwards. So when I heard about Sa-On doing this style of cooking in Henderson, I thought I was in for more of the same: a larb here, a green papaya salad there … the difference would be that I was enjoying it in a restaurant rather than al desko. Thai restaurant Sa-On in Henderson. Photo / Babiche Martens In fact, Sa-On's menu is something different, and quite exciting. They have those Isaan standards, of course, but they also have some signature dishes which make it really worth visiting in person. Take the Sa-On noodles, which are two-minute style, fried in a sweet soy-based sauce and heaped back into their plastic Insta-pot, the noodles spilling out over the top. Balancing on the noodles is a beef short rib bone, the meat itself having been braised to gelatinous perfection then sliced and tossed through the noodles. If that all sounds indulgent but a little nutritionally bereft I counted eight different varieties of vegetable that had been tossed into the wok as well: beans, carrots, cabbage, mushrooms, onion and more plus the absolute best thing you can find in a Thai dish: fresh green peppercorns, like a tiny bunch of grapes, tucked into the noodles as a spicy surprise gift. Zap Hang – noodles with beef short rib – is one of the signature dishes on the menu at Sa-On. Photo / Babiche Martens The restaurant itself is nice enough to spend a couple of hours in, though you wouldn't want to live there. It's a long, comfortable room with a bar at the back and a door through to a bathroom area that feels more like something you'd offer a hostage than a customer. It is clean and functional, but that's it. At the rear of the space is an external door, which we had fruitlessly knocked on earlier after taking advantage of the free parking out back. I don't think you need flash (ie painted) bathrooms to make a restaurant great, but it does unfortunately affect the Viva scoring system, which I've pushed to its limits given that the service is minimal and the only wine on offer is 'House'. Back to the food, then, which is good enough for you to put aside all of the above and visit Sa-On the next time you have an opportunity. There were only two of us, but I think a table of four to six would be perfect – there are so many incredible-looking dishes, and they make it even harder by putting a Five-Star Recommendation next to about a dozen of them. Even if you order perfectly, you will go home feeling like you've missed out. I went for spring rolls, snack wraps, those noodles, a soup, a curry and some rice. That in itself was a feast, but missed some key genres – grilled meat and salad among them. We took half of the food home with us and I concluded that we'd done as well as we could have on your behalf. Locals (many of whom have already discovered this place after two years in business) should feel free to get in touch and alert me to any crucial omissions. I don't think you should miss the grilled prawns, which are served room temperature, each one balanced on a betel leaf with toasted coconut and a little sweet ginger-peanut sauce that makes these things incredibly moreish. Advertisement Advertise with NZME. I love a spicy-sour Tom Yum soup and this one is the best I've come across. Served in a metal 'hot pot', it's served with your choice of protein (we chose pork) and, rather than the uniform coconut-milky texture you may be used to in cheaper places, this one is splotched with spicy chilli oil, with plenty of lime juice in the mix. For chefs from a landlocked part of the world, they are unexpectedly comfortable with the fruits of the sea, and one of my favourite dishes was the seafood curry. Unlike any curry I'd come across before, it features mussels in their shell, squid rings and prawns in a thick pink sauce, which I couldn't quite get my head around. It wasn't a gravy, more like a sort of custard … was it silken tofu? No, egg. Emulsified with coconut milk, I think, with perhaps a little red curry paste for flavour. Photo / Babiche Martens There isn't much for dessert, but you may find that a non-alcoholic cocktail or tea does the trick, arriving as it does in a sundae-style glass, with plenty of milk and sugar in the mix. I didn't have the nerve to order the 'Pink Nipple Milk' but we settled on the 'Thai Milk Tea', which was indulgent enough that we couldn't finish it. A sign on the wall reads 'Men: no shirt, no service/ Women: no shirt, free drinks!'. I'm not sure that quite captures the vibe of the Sa-On experience, but it does say something about the quirky nature of the restaurant. And, quirky or not, you'll struggle to find better Thai food in New Zealand. Sa-On Cuisine: Thai Address: 401 Great North Rd, Henderson Drinks: Fully licensed Reservations: Accepted Advertisement Advertise with NZME. From the menu: spring rolls $12.99, roasted prawn $16.99, Sa-On noodles $32.99, Tom Yum (pork) $23.99, seafood curry $30.99 Rating: 15/20 Score: 0-7 Steer clear. 8-12 Disappointing, give it a miss. 13-15 Good, give it a go. 16-18 Great, plan a visit. 19-20 Outstanding, don't delay. More restaurant reviews According to dining out editor Jesse Mulligan. This Albany Restaurant Is Hard To Park At But Worth The Effort There's 'real magic' in the kitchen, but some challenges to overcome. Palato In Browns Bay Has The Best Pasta Menu In The City. And its tomato pasta sauce is unrivalled in New Zealand. What Happens If You Ask AI To Create Your Restaurant's New Menu? Luke Dallow did just that for his new Ponsonby Rd bistro, Gigi. But does it work? Birkenhead's Bon Pinard Completes The Set With Duo & Uno. This North Shore wine bar serves up indulgence with a flavour-packed menu. Feeling Blue In Ponsonby. Jesse recommends you head to Blue immediately for the persimmon salad.
Scoop
an hour ago
- Scoop
Two And A Half Years After Cyclone Gabrielle, Here's How The Road To Piha Was Repaired
Explainer - The view is stunning - from high up in the Waitākere ranges, you can see all the way out east to downtown Auckland, the Sky Tower and the harbour, with Rangitoto Island visible on the horizon. But until Cyclone Gabrielle and the storms of 2023 hit, this particular view did not exist at this spot on Scenic Drive. Two and a half years ago, a wall of water, mud, trees and rocks smashed its way down onto the roadway, demolishing the road and carving a path 60 metres down the hill. Now the road has been put back together again, but the view smashed out of the thick bush still shows off nature's power. After close to three years of closure, the full road between West Auckland's Titirangi and Piha will finally reopen on Friday. It has taken millions of dollars and the labour of hundreds of workers to get here. This is just one of hundreds of slips and road repairs needed from Hawke's Bay to Northland following Cyclone Gabrielle and other weather events. In the complicated grunt work, analysis and problem solving, it is a good example of the mahi all around Aotearoa. The process behind rebuilding a road is far more than just slapping some fill and asphalt down on holes. "Water's a strange beast. It's unbelievable what it can do," said Auckland Transport (AT) road maintenance manager Johan Swanepoel as he surveyed some of the works along Scenic Drive. This is the main road that thousands of Aucklanders and tourists from all over the world have taken out to Piha, one of the region's most scenic beaches. For nearly three years, anyone wanting to get to Piha, Karekare and other small communities out here have had to take long detours. Here is how it has been restored. Just how much road damage is there in Auckland, anyway? More than 2000 slips on local roads were reported to Auckland Transport (AT) after the 2023 storms. "We've only got about 70 left to fix," said AT director of infrastructure Murray Burt. "Given the scale of the event, the complexity of some of the work, I think the team's done amazingly - and if you look across the country Auckland is well ahead of many parts of the country that were impacted by the storms at this time." West Auckland was hit particularly hard, thanks to the wet and steep topography of the area home to the Waitākere Ranges Regional Park. "We basically had damage on every piece of road we have in the West," Swanepoel said. AT flood recovery programme director Jez Pellow said Auckland Council felt the strain of the unprecedented widespread damage. "It pushed it to the absolute limit. I mean, I've lived in New Zealand for 18 years, I've never seen anything like this before. "We had, in certain parts of the region, one-in-200-year rain events ... So, you know, for instance, stormwater infrastructure, public and private, completely overwhelmed, all of them. They don't have a design life to cope with those types of events." In the west Auckland area, AT said 191 complex slips needed repairing: 119 minor (less than $250,000 to repair) and 72 major (more than $250,000 to repair). Earlier this year AT said the work was 80 percent complete. AT said the goal now is to have the very last of the Auckland cyclone repairs done by April 2026. "We'll still come in ahead of schedule," Pellow said. "We were anticipating this could have taken four or five years and we'll get to a point where the works on the road network will be completed by 30th of April next year." What kind of damage is there on the roads? There are several ways roads can be affected by severe weather. There is surface flooding and then there is subsidence, when a road sinks due to too much water in the ground and weak underlying soil or rock. In the Waitākere ranges, there are a lot of overslips and underslips. Overslips are when plants, soil, rock and other debris falls onto a road from above. Underslips are when the downhill side of the road begins to give way. Underslips are often more complicated to fix as they can require entirely rebuilding the road. Some of the biggest projects on Scenic Drive have been repairing giant underslips where nature gouged out huge chunks of infrastructure. "We initially prioritised repairing those areas that were impairing people's access to their properties," Burt said. Where do you even start with repairing a road like the road to Piha? The first step is clearing out the immediate debris and hazards on roads and possibly dealing with utilities like power, gas and water lines, but then the invisible work of analysing the ground begins and can take some time. No two slips are exactly alike. "We normally look at three to four options of how we will repair and then a decision is made how the repair will happen," Swanepoel said. AT has been able to work with existing contractors from Ventia, Fulton Hogan, Liveable Streets and Downer as well as working closely with NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi and the government for funding. After the 2023 storms, there were 10 large slips on Scenic Drive between Titirangi village and the turnoff to Piha. Several slips collapsed the busy stretch of roadway between the Titirangi roundabout and Woodlands Park Drive, which was reduced to stop-go travel and then closed entirely while huge new retaining walls rebuilt huge chunks of Scenic Drive that had slid down the hillside. That section reopened in December. "A design is then done and that takes quite a lot of time to do all of that and that's one of the reasons why it takes a year and a half to do this kind of work for this section. "We try to build back better," Swanepoel said. "This needs to last 100 years." The second part of the work has taken in several more large slips on the winding rural section of Scenic Drive that heads out towards Piha. There are still a few smaller projects on Scenic Drive that will require some temporary stop-go closures in one lane, but otherwise the road itself will be fully open for the first time since 2023. How the road is repaired Much of the work can be compared to an enormous sewing project, only with gigantic beams and anchors being inserted deep into bedrock and hillsides to keep fragile land together. RNZ stood with a team of AT staff at "Scenic 6", the final massive repair job where the newly opened view across Auckland stands at the top of a 60m-drop. "This is our final site that we had to deal with," Swanepoel said. "Basically what has happened here is this side of the road collapsed into the valley. If you look down here, it's about 60 metres deep. Half of the road was gone." Much of the repair work will be invisible to drivers soon humming along on Scenic Drive, but that's the idea. The road rests on a concrete piled, tied-back wall and under the road surface are concrete slabs to raise it back to the former level. "This looked like a mine," Swanepoel said of one massive underslip. "We had to basically build the whole road back ... We've had to bring it up from the bottom." Another section of road looks almost like it was never damaged, but appearances are deceiving. "This is a deep fill," Swanepoel said, standing on the resealed road. "This is like two diggers deep, if you can say it that way." Walls built under roads or retaining walls help shore up the stability. Enormous piles of concrete or metal - sometimes up to 20m long - are driven deep into the earth, while anchors and soil nails - which are exactly what they sound like - are also used. The anchors and nails are also several metres long depending on the site conditions. The resulting lattice-like effect reinforces the ground beneath. A variety of draining solutions were also employed at sites to ensure water can escape in another heavy rain situation. "We strive to get the best out of what we can afford," Swanepoel said. "For us this bit here will not slip again." Ultimately, the goal is to hold the land together and facilitate drainage. "These are tried and tested engineering solutions, but it's basic grunty stuff, you know, building lots of walls," Pellow said. "When you drive past that nobody can see it. There's a massive piece of engineering that as you say, it is literally stapled into the side of the earth, and you wouldn't even see it." Okay, but why does it all take so long? There are several reasons these projects are taking years to complete. There is the time it takes for geoengineers to study the site, to ensure it is safe to work on and to figure out the best solution. Because of the damage to so many roads around West Auckland, projects have had to be staggered to avoid access being cut off by multiple closures at once. "We could have closed the whole road, we could have worked on all 10 at the same time," Pellow said. "But what that would have done is that would have been completely destroyed access for those communities." And sometimes it gets more complex. Estimated deadlines for the work to end have moved a few times. While working on two slips on Scenic Drive between Titirangi village and Woodlands Park Road, a third slip was discovered, and there was also the constant threat of more overslips from the hills above. "I think a lot of people don't really realise that sometimes it's just not possible to predict everything from the start," Swanepoel said. How much has all this cost, anyway? The AT Flood Recovery Programme is estimated to cost $390 million, jointly funded by the Crown and Auckland Council: NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi ($199m), Auckland Council ($81m) and Crown Infrastructure Partners, now National Infrastructure Funding and Financing ($110m). Documents AT provided to RNZ show the Scenic Drive repairs at eight sites have cost $15.8 million, with some drainage work still to come. Overall the government has provided $2.9 billion for North Island weather events response and recovery since 2023, with Transport Minister Chris Bishop announcing extra funding for roads in May's Budget. What about the people affected by this disruption? For close to three years, thousands of people living out in West Auckland have been living with the floods and cyclone aftermath. "Understandably, people, they want to get back to some sort of sense of normality," Pellow said. "Businesses have been affected, people who are just trying to go about their day-to-day business have been affected, and we are acutely aware of that." Rahul Uppal, owner of the Olive Kitchen & Bar on Scenic Drive just before the closed section, called the road reopening "a huge milestone". "I've waited three years for this moment - and to be honest, it's felt more like a decade. We faced challenges that nearly forced us to close our doors, but our locals kept us going. If this were anywhere else in the world, we might have been long gone - so we're truly grateful to our community." Uppal said the restaurant, which just marked its sixth anniversary, has been hit hard by first the pandemic and then weather chaos. "We hope people from across Auckland will take the beautiful drive out to Titirangi and Piha, support local businesses, and help us rebuild after these challenging years." Will this work actually hold up to future storms? AT staff emphasise there is no foolproof protection against all future weather damage, particularly with the uncertainties caused by climate change. "There'll always be slips on the network," Pellow said. "I think due to the nature of how our roads are engineered, particularly places like the Waitākeres and the geology of that place and also the significant rainfall that we experience. There's always going to be vulnerabilities there." But in heavy storms since, the work has held up so far. "In July, we had significant rainfall and all of the walls, all the retaining structures and the drainage that we've built as a consequence of 2023 has stood up," Pellow said. "None of them have failed. So that gave us a lot of reassurance." AT is trialling new electronic early flood warning systems at three flood-prone sites and is developing a landslide predicting framework using data from existing landslides and AI (artificial intelligence) mapping across almost 8000km of Auckland's local road network. Burt said with the hazard mapping, "we've overlain the slope angles understanding the underlying geology and geotechnical parameters, and using AI we've been able to come up with a landslide hazard map for all of the roads" in Auckland. At some sites, inclinometers have been buried under the road - tiny devices that measure slope stability and can warn if the road is slipping under the asphalt. "We've learned a hell of a lot," Pellow said. "What we've been able to do, for instance, is we've taken the data and the actual real life slips across the network, and we've used that to extrapolate that out across the whole road network, we've actually identified where the vulnerabilities are, where the slip hazards are." "I think we've learned that the Auckland road network is quite vulnerable to these type of events," Burt said. "With climate change we're going to see more weather events quite frequently. "I've been involved in humanitarian and disaster response all around the world, and I do think that the way Auckland responded to this was pretty good ... Overall, as a city and a country we should be proud of where we've got."
Otago Daily Times
01-08-2025
- Otago Daily Times
Next stop South America
PHOTO: STEPHEN JAQUIERY A Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner of Chilean airline Latam flying from Sydney to Santiago catches the setting sun at 33,000 feet as it appears behind the Municipal Chambers clocktower yesterday evening.
