Suzy Cato's Auckland: Black sand beaches, gluten-free eats and jazz nights

Suzy Cato has spent enough time in Auckland to know where the real places are—not the ones tourists photograph, but the ones locals actually return to. The children's entertainer, familiar to generations of New Zealand families, has built a map of the city that reflects both her tastes and her constraints, a geography shaped by what matters to her: good food, good company, and the particular challenge of finding restaurants and cafes that take dietary requirements seriously.

When it comes to dinner with friends, she heads to Gerome in Parnell, a modern Greek restaurant that has built its menu around abundance rather than restriction. The kitchen handles gluten-free, vegan, and dairy-free orders with the same care it brings to its standard dishes, which matters to Cato in a way that goes beyond personal preference—it means no one at the table has to sit out, no one has to apologize for what they can or cannot eat. The restaurant's design reinforces this sense of inclusion: four separate dining spaces, each capped at fifty guests, so a group of any size finds itself in an intimate setting rather than lost in a crowd.

For visitors to the city, Cato points toward the things that make Auckland genuinely distinctive. The black-sand beaches of the West Coast—Piha and Muruwai especially—sit at the top of her list, not because they are famous but because they are rare. Most people, wherever they come from, have never walked on black sand, and that strangeness, that unfamiliarity, is precisely what makes them worth the trip. She pairs these with the expected landmarks: One Tree Hill, or Maungakiekie, for its view across the entire city, and the Auckland Museum, which works for visitors of any age.

The smaller pleasures matter just as much. Coffee Lab, tucked into Wairau Valley on the North Shore, is where Cato's family gravitates for its coffee and, crucially, for Anna's gluten-free cabinet. Her husband and son praise the coffee itself; Cato loves the hot chocolate. The cheesecake options have become a point of contention in the household—her boys cannot be moved from them. When the evening ends and her husband wants a whisky, they find their way to The Jefferson, a bar that has become their closing ritual.

For hiking, the North Shore offers enough variety that Cato describes the family as spoilt for choice. She loves the walk along the coastline at low tide, and the trail out to Kitekite Falls. She mentions geocaching, something she used to do with her cousin, and wonders aloud whether this summer might be the time to revive it, to turn the hunt into a family outing. There is a lightness in how she frames this—not a resolution, but a possibility, the kind of thing that occurs to you when you are asked to think about the places you love.

Finding a fish and chip shop with a gluten-free menu is difficult enough that when Cato finds one, she stays loyal. The Chip Shop in Royal Oak has earned that loyalty through consistency: fresh fish, crispy gluten-free batter, chunky fries. The shop itself is small—a few perches inside for waiting—so the family has developed a ritual. They drive up the road to One Tree Hill, sit in the car, eat, and then walk. The meal becomes part of something larger.

Auckland's entertainment venues have been revitalized in recent years, and Cato has noticed. Goblin's jazz nights have become a destination, particularly when the Daybus Jazz Orchestra performs—they play classic standards with what she describes as slick precision. She is also bringing her own work to the city: Suzy Cato's Animal Antics will run at the Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre as part of Auckland Live's We The Young festival. For bargains, she is methodically working through the city's op shops, hunting for hidden treasures, and she frequents the farmers and craft markets, though she notes that car boot sales have largely disappeared from the landscape. What remains is enough: markets, op shops, the possibility of finding something unexpected.