Where should I eat in Queenstown, and which local food or drink is worth trying?

The ritual is a burger, and its terms are set by the shop itself. Fergburger, at 42 Shotover Street, has been Queenstown's defining casual meal since 2000, and its listed hours tell the story of its demand: it opens at 8:30 in the morning and does not close until 5 the following morning. The menu is a roll-call of local references — the Big Al, the Sweet Bambi made with venison, and The Codfather, built on blue cod, the cold-water fish that is the South Island's own. The queue out the door and down the street is not a failure of planning; it is the attraction's antechamber, and at peak times it can run past half an hour for a burger eaten on the lakefront five minutes away.

The occasion is at Lake Hayes, ten minutes east. Amisfield began as a vineyard in 1988 on what had been a high-country merino station; its estate now covers about 494 acres (200 ha) beneath the Pisa Range, with some 222 acres (90 ha) of vines under organic management, producing around 30,000 cases a year — of which pinot noir accounts for more than 60 percent, on the company's own figures. The restaurant beside the vines holds three hats in the Cuisine Good Food Awards, and its set menu is served in a trust-the-chef format that has made it the region's defining special-occasion lunch: book it days ahead, and treat the afternoon as spoken for.

The glass is filled twenty minutes east in the Gibbston Valley, where the Kawarau gorge softens into vines. Gibbston Valley Wines pours at its cellar door on State Highway 6 and runs tours into its wine cave — a cellar blasted into the schist rock, billed as the largest wine cave in the country. Neighbouring Peregrine Wines built its tasting room under a roof shaped like the wing of the kārearea, the New Zealand falcon the winery is named for. What is in the glass throughout the valley is Central Otago pinot noir — the region's flagship red, grown at the cool margin of winemaking — with riesling and pinot gris as the aromatic understudies. December adds the valley's edible calendar: Central Otago stone fruit peaks in the summer weeks, cherries first, sold from orchard stalls around Cromwell and in the town's shops from mid-December into January.

The Fergburger queue at dusk is a cross-section of the town — ski boots in winter, river sandals in summer — shuffling past the lit shopfront while the smell of the grill rolls down Shotover Street and the burgers come out wrapped in paper, two-handed, bigger than the plan anyone made for dinner.

Queenstown's most famous restaurant is dark for only three and a half hours a day. Between Fergburger's 5 a.m. close and its 8:30 a.m. reopening there is a brief silence on Shotover Street — which means the queue-avoidance strategy is written into the hours themselves: the breakfast burger at opening, or the 1 a.m. burger after the bars, are the same burger with nobody in front of you.

• Morning — Coffee and a bakery start in the town's cafés, or the opening-time Fergburger at 8:30, eaten on the wharf while the lake is empty.
• Midday — The Amisfield lunch on a booked day, or a Gibbston cellar-door circuit — cave tour, tasting, a glass with lunch — with a nominated driver, because the valley has no public transport.
• Evening — Dinner in the town center's lanes, then the late Fergburger as the night's last institution if the queue defeated you earlier — it will not have at midnight.

Fergburger's fame is self-defeating at the obvious hours: lunch and early evening in peak season are the worst of it, and the shop's small footprint means the queue is outdoors in all weather. Amisfield's restaurant books out well ahead in summer and keeps limited days — its cellar door and restaurant hours are not a full week — so it cannot be a spontaneous decision. And the Gibbston circuit is a driving circuit: distances are short but the road is the Kawarau gorge road, the tastings are generous, and the valley rewards a booked tour or a sober volunteer.

Book Amisfield the day you book your flights, queue for Fergburger once at an odd hour rather than twice at a peak one, and give Gibbston a half-day with transport arranged. The days question in this group fits the food into the scenery schedule.