The 25 Best Places to Drink and Stay in Queenstown

Perched on the edge of Lake Wakatipu with the Remarkables stacking up behind it, Rosewood Matakauri is a luxury alpine lodge about ten minutes from Queenstown. Cedarwood saunas and heated plunge pools handle the wellness crowd, while the surrounding terrain keeps the heli-skiing and whitewater rafting contingent equally occupied. Inside, rooms lean heavily into the view, which does most of the decorating.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended
2. Michelin Guide 1 Key
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

Five suites on the shore of Lake Wakatipu, each with a wood-burning fireplace and possum-skin throws on the beds, and views that make the price tag feel like a reasonable argument. Eichardt's is a boutique luxury hotel that's been around forever, though it took a flood and a gutsy renovation to become the place it is now. The Remarkables for winter skiing, the lake for summer, and a Michelin Key for the rooms themselves.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Key

Nine freestanding villas perched above Lake Wakatipu with the Remarkables filling every window, Azur is the kind of small lodge that makes you feel vaguely guilty about booking a normal hotel. Spa tubs face the panorama, fireplaces run hard through ski season, and breakfast arrives in-suite if you'd rather not put on shoes. A Michelin Key property, and close enough to Queenstown that complimentary transfers make skipping the rental car a reasonable argument.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Key

Meat cleavers double as door handles, which sets the tone before you've ordered a drink. This cocktail bar sits inside a lakefront steakhouse in Queenstown, dressed up in plush contemporary style despite looking like a colonial cottage from the outside. The lake views do a lot of the heavy lifting in summer, and the crowd skews toward people who've had a good day on the slopes and don't mind showing it.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Stone walls, arched windows, and a homestead that's been around forever anchor this lodge near Queenstown, where a local family spent decades turning a sheep paddock into something that reads more like a European château than rural New Zealand. Suites and cottages open onto formal gardens with the Remarkables behind them, and a chapel, wine cellar, and hot tubs fill in whatever gaps the scenery leaves. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Key

1. Michelin Guide 1 Key

Gold accents, crystal chandeliers, and double spa baths in every room, a very Parisian move for a town more accustomed to ski lodges. This luxury hotel parks you steps from Lake Wakatipu with the Remarkables as a backdrop, then spends considerable energy making you forget the outdoors exist. The L'Occitane spa, the red-velvet gin bar stocked with Central Otago distillers, and a restaurant running French technique on New Zealand produce complete the case for staying in.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Ten rooms, private balconies, gas fireplaces, heated floors, deep tubs, and a pillow menu, which tells you everything about the register. The Spire is a small luxury hotel in the heart of Queenstown, dressed in a dramatic palette of reds, greys, and black with furniture by Eames and Philippe Starck. No ski-lodge kitsch anywhere. The staff, refreshingly, skips the boutique-hotel sulk. A good base for the slopes in winter or Lake Wakatipu in summer.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

The hot tub garden sits with a direct view of the Remarkables, which tells you most of what you need to know about this Queenstown hotel. It reads like a Swiss ski lodge that made a detour through a European city hotel, all alpine warmth with a sharper edge than most of the competition on the lake. Lombardi Bar draws locals alongside guests, and that's usually a reliable sign that a hotel has figured something out.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Eight rooms in a restored Victorian villa a short walk from Queenstown's center, and the place still feels like someone's very grand house, which is entirely the point. Patterned wallpaper, period furnishings, and views over the lake or garden fill the rooms. A pair of garden hot tubs, borrowed bikes, and a free town shuttle cover the practicalities. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Perched above Lake Wakatipu with the Remarkables framing the window, QT Queenstown is a boutique hotel that leans hard into the chic-urban-in-a-ski-town contradiction and pulls it off. Rooms run plush enough to justify a full day horizontal after whatever the mountains did to you. The market-style Bazaar handles meals, and the whole place carries the kind of polish that makes guests quietly wonder why they booked anything else in town.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Every one of the 19 rooms at this boutique hotel looks out at a mountain range called The Remarkables, which rather sets the tone. Timber, stone, and glass keep the exterior in quiet conversation with the landscape, while local designers softened the interiors into something genuinely livable, each room spilling onto its own terrace or patio. Complimentary canapes and wine arrive in the lounge before dinner, and gourmet picnic hampers go out for those who prefer their meal with altitude.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Fifteen suites, all of them facing Lake Wakatipu and The Remarkables, which means the mountain view is essentially the design brief. This is a small luxury hotel, quietly tucked away from Queenstown's busier streets, with freestanding tubs, fireplaces, and wide glass doors arranged around that panorama. Larger residences add outdoor fireplaces and balcony saunas. A house car runs guests into town when the view eventually loses the argument.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Antique skis on the wall and bold plaid underfoot could have landed anywhere on the Alpine-lodge spectrum, but Naumi's maximalist instincts kept pulling things somewhere far more interesting. This 13-room boutique hotel occupies a century-old building that was once Queenstown's first general store, and the interiors balance Alpine-chic references with a riot of color and pattern. A complimentary evening happy hour runs in the lounge, and an outdoor Jacuzzi looks out over the rooftops.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Floor-to-ceiling windows frame the Shotover River and the Remarkables from every room at this five-star resort perched above Arthurs Point, just outside Queenstown. Rattan lights and timber headboards keep things grounded while the landscape does the decorating. The on-site bar and restaurant runs breakfast through dinner using local ingredients with that same panorama behind every meal. Coronet Peak is close enough to build a ski day around, and the spa is there when you've had enough of both.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Saturated secondary colors and an eclectic mix of furnishings give this boutique hotel a maximalist personality that somehow still reads as distinctly South Island. Singapore's Naumi Hotels brought in a Wanaka creative agency to localize the brand's signature fantasy, and the result lands closer to a very stylish friend's house than a chain property. The Central Bar pours New Zealand wines, a courtyard garden sits tucked out back, and the staff come armed with neighborhood restaurant picks.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

A narrow beer bar tucked opposite Bardeaux on Queenstown's drinking circuit, Mini Bar runs a passport scheme where you drink your way around the world one bottle at a time, from over a hundred international options. Pop art in the Lichtenstein style covers the walls. There are cocktails on offer and a solid back-bar, but this is a beer place at heart, and the bartenders know it too.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

Tucked above Minibar up a flight of stairs, this one-room cocktail bar has a vaulted ceiling and a sliver of a view over the corner below. It's a little rough around the edges, which is precisely its charm: bartenders drink here on their nights off, and by midnight the music has climbed accordingly. They chill the wine glasses before pouring cold whites, which tells you something about where their priorities sit.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

Absinthe fountains, crystal decanters, and gold bartending equipment crowd the shelves of this cocktail bar, lit almost entirely by tea-lights. The menu sorts drinks by historical category, fizzes and daisies and the rest, each with a footnote on who invented it and where. The vibe is full-throated heritage emporium, which makes the thumping dance music either a charming contradiction or a minor existential crisis, depending on your mood.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 3 stars · Difford's Guide

Upstairs from the Red Rock pub, this small whisky bar fits leather chesterfields, barrel tables, and glass cases of whisky paraphernalia into a room that feels like a gentleman's club someone actually uses. Your feet rest on an old piece of railway line at the bar, which sets the tone. The selection covers Scotch, Japanese, Canadian, and bourbon, thorough enough for a good evening, and there are other spirits tucked in old crates below for anyone who wandered in by accident.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide