Raising the low bar on accessible dining

Here at The D*List we know dining out isn’t as easy as just showing up somewhere you’ve seen on your friends’ Instagram stories. What if the restaurant has no mobility parking? What if it’s super loud? What if there is no accessible bathroom?

As we read up on Metro magazine’s Top 50 Restaurants of the Year 2024, we were pleasantly surprised that most reviews included information on wheelchair accessibility. The introduction read:

“We’ve included notes around accessibility – indicating whether restaurants are wheelchair accessible (meaning entrance, dining area and bathrooms) and if there’s mobility parking within a 200m radius. We’ve made our best efforts to ensure that this guidance is correct – but we still encourage diners to include accessibility needs when making reservations where possible (and have made note of restaurants where it’s super important to do so). As an aside, we’d love to see more restaurants including this information more readily on their websites and social media pages.” 

Firstly, this is really heartening. While for now it's a yes or no indication on wheelchair accessibility, this information is useful for some. Of course, there’s so much more to accessibility than just wheelchair access, but starting this conversation is important. The reality is that right now, spontaneity isn’t an option, so just knowing whether or not you can actually get around in the restaurant is helpful. 

We’ve rarely seen accessibility information in local restaurant reviews before; it’s more of a thing overseas. Could this be a standard in the future though? We asked Metro’s food editor Charlotte Muru-Lanning on why she wanted to introduce it this year. 

When Muru-Lanning used to work front-of-house in restaurants, people came in with different accessibility needs that she did her best to accommodate. Now, when she’s dining, she’s often thinking about how dining establishments can be more accessible.

Wheelchair accessibility seemed like an obvious place to start, said Muru-Lanning. “It’s the most visible form when people are thinking about accessibility.” For a restaurant to be deemed wheelchair accessible on the reviews, there needed to be wheelchair access from the front door to the entirety of the restaurant and the bathrooms. Forty out of 50 restaurants on the list were considered wheelchair accessible.  

However, the information was gathered through a “very imperfect process”, and “could definitely be improved on”, she said. For example, none of the judges were wheelchair users. “It would be great to have someone who actually goes and checks that out or who actually is an expert in that,” said Muru-Lanning. 

Muru-Lanning was hoping to come across some other kinds of accessible hospitality. The judges did shout out to Cazador in Tāmaki Makaurau whose wait staff accommodated a blind/low vision couple by describing drink and food options, pre-slicing their dish of braised   venison, and explaining the content and location of everything on the plate. But aside from that, there’s a lot more that can be done to make dining more accessible. 

For a start, Muru-Lanning said more restaurants should be providing information about accessibility. “It would be so easy, especially for these bigger restaurants, to just have that information online.” All but one of the 50 restaurants on the list had accessibility information on its website. Muru-Lanning dreams of restaurants that are flexible and accommodating, not just for wheelchair users but for other needs. “It's about hospitality, right? It’s about manaakitanga.”

And we dream that too. Long may the days be gone that we zoom into Google Photos of restaurants, or ask able-bodied friends to reccie it out first. What do you think? What would your dream, accessible restaurant experience look like? Drop us a line, and let us know!

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