In recent decades, there has been a global push to restore depleted shellfish reefs and the array of ecosystem services they generate. Extensive green-lipped mussel (Perna canaliculus), or kūtai, reefs were decimated throughout New Zealand/Aotearoa by commercial harvesting in the last century. Current restoration efforts, however, are impeded by a lack of natural recruitment to mussel reefs restored to the seafloor through the transplantation of cultured adult mussels. The recruitment bottleneck is thought to be caused by substrate limitation, in particular the absence of preferred macroalgae species. To gain insight into the substrate requirements for settlement and establishment of early mussels on reefs, patterns of juvenile mussel settlement among different species of macroalgae were closely examined on remnant intertidal mussel reefs. Mussel settlement varied between different macroalgae species and morphologies depending on the stage of juvenile mussel development and the small-scale environmental conditions associated with their location on the shore. These findings will be used to inform future experimental research aimed at using substrate enhancements to facilitate natural recruitment into newly restored mussel reefs.