Three To Try: Auckland’s Best New Korean Spots

Auckland’s concentration of Korean eateries is impressive and, particularly in the city centre, there’s an excellent selection to choose from. There are lively late-night spots where you can share a kimchi-jjigae (braised kimchi stew) or some bulgogi ssam beef lettuce wraps, along with sleek restaurants serving elevated interpretations of the cuisine. Each new opening expands and diversifies the delicious world of Korean food in Auckland – here are three recent additions to check out.

Swings, CBD
Couple Paul and Lisa Lee are behind popular Ponsonby Korean restaurant Ockhee, which opened in 2020 and is known and loved for its wholesome, home-style Korean dishes.
At Swings, the focus is on gilgeori toast, a type of toasted sandwich made with fluffy white bread that translates to “street toast” in Korean. They opened the 30-seat daytime spot in June of this year on Kitchener Street, just down from Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki. Inside, it’s pared-back and peaceful, with exposed brick walls, a merch shelf and arched windows that face out onto the green.

Choose from sandwich fillings such as the Rocker – egg and mozzarella with condensed milk and gochujang sauce – or the Bully, which has egg, lettuce and marinated beef with mayo and bulgogi sauce. There’s also a small selection of sides, including fried chicken skewers (choose regular or spicy) and sweet chilli rice cake skewers using the addictive Korean tteokbokki. To drink, Swings serves in-house labelled single-origin filter coffee – plus both natural wine and beer on tap.

Tokki, Milford
Tokki chef and owner Jason Kim is well known in the industry thanks to a CV that includes experience at The Grove, Clooney, Cassia and Sidart. He's also part-owner of wildly popular Commercial Bay restaurant Gochu. A North Shore local, Kim opened his 26-seat Milford restaurant in August, with a goal to encourage people to learn more about Korean cuisine. “I want them to know it’s more than amazing fried chicken and kimchi,” he told Broadsheet when Tokki opened. He’s also keen for people to know that Korean food can be elevated and served with premium wine from all over the world – so, at Tokki, Taittinger Cuvee Prestige is available by the glass and the comprehensive wine list was compiled by well-known sommelier Hiro Kawahara.

The menu centres on refined sharing plates such as beef short rib with black-garlic jus and house-made white kimchi (without chilli); raw fish with Korean mustard and minari (also known as water celery); round toasties filled with mortadella and oiji (cucumber kimchi); and Kim’s take on popular knife-cut noodle dish kalguksu, which might well become Tokki’s signature. It consists of a single metre-long flat noodle, stir-fried with mushrooms and Korean-style chilli pork, and piled artfully onto a plate.

Banziha, Grey Lynn
This Williamson Avenue bar and restaurant serves Korean sharing plates, organic wine and beer on tap, and nine flavours of house-made soju cocktails. It evolved from a past life as cafe Janus Eatery, and reopened as Banziha in May this year after a period of closure due to the pandemic. It still operates with a lunch menu during the week until 3pm, and you can order Korean classics such as bulgogi, fried chicken (OG or sweet and spicy), bibimbap and vegetable glass noodles – or stop in for a coffee or tea.

Every evening, neon lights draw the eye through its large windows, and video projections of South Korean city scenes shift on an inside wall. The space is on the ground level of the recently completed Cider Building development; simply laid out, it has high ceilings and an industrial feel. The inclined pathway along the big window reminded owner Chris Kim of the "banziha" (also known as “banjiha”) apartments that anyone who's seen the Oscar-winning 2019 film Parasite will be familiar with – hence his eatery’s name.

On the dinner menu, find signatures such as pork belly cooked on charcoal (samgyeopsal) with stir-fried kimchi, and “volcanic Korean chicken” (also known as cheese buldak) for fans of a cheese-pull opportunity. Wine-wise, Banziha currently serves Still Life wine and Continental Platter prosecco – all on tap. There's also hazy pale ale on tap and Cass beer by the bottle. You can order from a selection of nine soju cocktails that arrive in a jug to be poured into small glasses between bites. Flavours include strawberry, peach and grape (those are mixed as slushies) – and there’s even a coffee soju.