From the original māra of mana whenua at Ihumātao and Te Haukapua to immigrant kitchens, wartime food production and some of Aotearoa’s most memorable cookbooks, the Auckland Heritage Festival is returning with more than 150 events celebrating the kai, cultures and communities that have shaped Tāmaki Makaurau.
The Auckland Heritage Festival returns for its 22nd year from Saturday 26 September to Sunday 11 October 2026, offering two weeks of free and low-cost events across the region.
This year’s theme, Tastes of Tāmaki: A Heritage Feast, puts food at the centre of Auckland’s history.
But the programme goes well beyond what is on the plate.
It explores how kai connects people with whenua, whānau, migration, trade, community and identity, beginning with the māra and food systems of mana whenua and following the arrival of new communities and culinary traditions that have continued to transform the city.
Mana whenua at the beginning of the story
One of the most significant elements of this year’s programme is its recognition that Auckland’s food history did not begin with European settlement.
Long before today’s supermarkets, restaurants and hospitality industry, the fertile volcanic soils and coastal environments of Tāmaki Makaurau supported extensive Māori settlement, cultivation, fishing and food gathering.
Festival events will explore that history directly.
On the North Shore, The Māra Kai of Te Haukapua will examine the archaeology and history of Māori gardening in Devonport.
In the south, visitors can join a guided hīkoi through Ōtuataua Stonefields Historic Reserve at Ihumātao, one of Tāmaki Makaurau’s most important cultural and archaeological landscapes.
The stonefields provide physical evidence of generations of cultivation and settlement and demonstrate the sophisticated relationship mana whenua developed with the volcanic landscape.
For Māori, these are not simply historic food-production sites.
They are places of whakapapa and mātauranga where relationships between tangata, whenua and kai remain visible today.
Kai tells the story of migration
The festival then follows the many communities that have made Tāmaki Makaurau home.
Mayor Wayne Brown says food provides a way of understanding Auckland’s history because generations of people have grown, gathered, traded, cooked and shared food across the region.
The programme reflects that diversity.
In central Auckland, an illustrated presentation at Studio One Toi Tū will explore the history of Italian gastronomy, while an exhibition in Parnell will delve into New Zealand’s heritage recipe books.
In Papatoetoe, visitors can tour the Swaminarayan Temple, learn about Kiwi-Indian history and architecture and share a traditional vegetarian meal.
Glen Innes Library will turn its attention towards Colombian migrant heritage and food.
Together, those stories demonstrate how Auckland’s culinary identity has continually evolved as communities have brought traditions from across the world and adapted them to life in Aotearoa.
Ihumātao puts whenua and food together
The inclusion of Ihumātao carries particular significance.
The landscape is nationally recognised through contemporary debates over whenua, but its importance stretches back centuries.
The festival’s guided hīkoi through Ōtuataua Stonefields provides an opportunity to examine the area’s history through the lens of food production and the relationship between people and whenua.
It also challenges the idea that Māori agriculture before colonisation was small or unsophisticated.
Tāmaki Makaurau supported extensive Māori communities precisely because its volcanic soils, harbours and climate provided access to rich food resources.
That history is literally embedded in the landscape.
How Pukekohe helped feed a war
Food also provides an unexpected window into Auckland’s wartime history.
A Pukekohe event will explore how a busy local factory helped feed American forces operating across the Pacific during the Second World War.
It demonstrates the enormous logistical challenge of feeding military personnel across a vast theatre of war and the role Auckland’s productive whenua and food-processing industries played in that effort.
For Pukekohe, an area still synonymous with horticulture and food production, it provides another chapter in a much longer relationship between land, employment and feeding communities.
Kai West puts whakapapa on the menu
In West Auckland, Kai West will bring together stories of kai, whakapapa, whenua, cultures and communities.
Other western events will examine the history of the area’s gardens and orchards, while comedian Te Radar turns his attention to some of the beloved — and occasionally bizarre — cookbooks of New Zealand’s past.
At the Arataki Visitor Centre, participants can make beeswax wraps while learning about bees and their environmental importance.
The variety illustrates the festival’s broader point: food heritage is not confined to recipes.
It includes the whenua where food is produced, the ecosystems supporting it, the people preparing it and the traditions passed between generations.
More than 150 experiences across Auckland
The programme stretches across Tāmaki Makaurau.
Central-city visitors can experience Te Wharekura on Quay Street, where an immersive sensory-led storytelling experience will explore heritage, kai and connection.
Couldrey House in the north will reveal its connection with Edmonds, one of the country’s most recognisable names in baking history.
Howick’s Bell House will bring together architecture, specialty foods, handmade goods and seasonal produce, while walking tours will explore the area’s historic town centre.
There are also architectural tours, talks, exhibitions, performances, workshops and activities covering heritage beyond the featured food theme.
In total, Aucklanders will have access to more than 150 free or low-cost events.
Food as whakapapa
Auckland Council Heritage Manager Noel Reardon says the programme is designed to demonstrate how food has influenced communities, landscapes and traditions across the region.
That framing has particular resonance in te ao Māori.
Kai can connect generations.
Seeds and cultivation practices carry mātauranga.
Mahinga kai connects whānau to place.
Recipes preserve memories.
Gathering kai can reinforce whakapapa and community relationships.
And the ability to feed manuhiri remains an expression of manaakitanga.
Seen through that lens, Auckland’s food history is also a history of people and their relationship with the places they call home.
A different way to discover Tāmaki Makaurau
The strength of Tastes of Tāmaki is that it offers another way of understanding Auckland’s history.
Instead of beginning only with buildings, politicians or dates, it begins with something everybody understands — food.
From the māra of mana whenua to Italian gastronomy, Kiwi-Indian traditions, Colombian flavours, West Auckland orchards and wartime factories, each tells part of the story of how Tāmaki Makaurau became the city it is today.
And perhaps the most important lesson is that Auckland’s food heritage is not finished.
Every new generation continues to add to it.
The kai may change, but the connections between food, whenua, whānau, culture and community remain at the heart of Tāmaki Makaurau.
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