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Head down the cobbles and pull up a pew on Marine Parade on a fine evening. You’ll see people promenading (read: strolling), hear wine glasses clinking at one of the many bars and eateries nearby, see children playing in the Sunken Garden, and the Norfolk pines will be doing their angular thing against a pink sky. I defy you not to think, just for a second, that you’ve somehow been magicked onto the Amalfi Coast.
But this is New Zealand’s East Coast and this is Napier, and with one of the highest sunshine counts in the country (2,300 hours – roughly on par with what you’d find in parts of southern Europe) – vines, bicycles and coffee, we reckon we’ve got something on Italy, actually.
So perhaps it’s not such a stretch after all to imagine that come the end of the month, we may well be known as the Negroni Capital of New Zealand.
Why us? Well, we have a magnificent wine culture, first and foremost. Some of New Zealand’s oldest vineyards are right on our doorstep – and local distillers making all the key ingredients of the negroni too, including the fortified wine that is vermouth.
We’ve got Art Deco, which isn’t an obvious comparison until you remember that it’s same era that gave Italy its own Rationalist architecture – all clean lines, sunbaked colour and Instagrammable aspects. Squint a little, pop a negroni in your hand, and you could very nearly be in Naples rather than Napier. Surely the name similarity is fate!
Napier Negroni Week, running from September 21 to 27, has 19 venues across the CBD and Ahuriri pouring 36 variations on the theme, from classic to boundary-pushing riffs. I’ve had a look at the menu and there are some interesting ideas – a coconut and coffee negroni, blueberry negroni and (sticking to the superfood theme) a smoked salmon infused negroni. There’s even a negroni that’s made with a dash of a local IPA.
And for those who prefer their negronis traditional, there are plenty of timeless takes too.
It’s a week designed to be taken slowly, because we’re not attempting to out-drink anyone! What we’d like to see is visitors who spend a few days poring over our negroni map, trying out what appeals, and lingering over their aperitives before enjoying a relaxed dinner, or even fish and chips at the beach.
There’s also a practical case for the title – tourism. We proudly welcome over 100,000 cruise passengers and crew through Napier Port each season and we’d love them to not just drink in our stunning Art Deco architecture, but experience our charming, easy-going hospitality. A claim to Negroni Capital of New Zealand tells a fresh story and build out a memorable, reasonably low-effort addition to our city that has people telling their friends back home about it.
Yes, a “Negroni Capital” title gives cruise passengers, and everyone else, one more very good reason to get off the ship, or off the plane, and stay a while.
Napier is a small city but we’re beautiful, we’re bright, and we bustle in the summer months. A little like a coastal clifftop town in Italy, don’t you think? If somewhere in New Zealand is going to lay claim to the negroni, on looks, on weather, and on sheer enthusiasm, I don’t think it’s a hard case to make that it should be us!
