The Kimchi Project

Cafes key icon.
Cafes key icon.

MondayClosed.

Tuesday11:30 am – 2:30 pm, 5:00 – 8:30 pm.

Wednesday11:30 am – 2:30 pm, 5:00 – 8:30 pm.

Thursday11:30 am – 2:30 pm, 5:00 – 8:30 pm.

Friday11:30 am – 2:30 pm, 5:00 – 8:30 pm.

Saturday11:30 am – 2:30 pm, 5:00 – 8:30 pm.

Sunday11:30 am – 2:30 pm, 5:00 – 8:30 pm.

20 Lorne St, Auckland

021 222 7172

This is possibly the most wonderful cafe/restaurant you will go to this year. The Kimchi Project offers Korean inspired breakfast, brunch, lunch and dinner with a menu full of delicious surprises (without forgetting more classic meals for the dedicated conservative).

Re-imagine food- ‘waffle fries’ = pan-fried kimchi, sriacha yogurt and bacon, or experiment with classic Korean desserts- red bean puree, vanilla and lychee. Crab buns, mushroom buns, tempura chicken buns and off course- pork buns. They also offer a kids menu with some less daring options.

The restaurant looks like a small CBD cafe from the entrance, and there are a number of tables in the front in a café style layout serving delicious Red Rabbit coffee, smoothies, matcha lattes, and Noble and Savage tea. But if you venture further, you’ll find a courtyard out the back with an open glass roof and walls covered with foliage with an air of an oriental paradise.

You’ll be looking for any excuse to get taken to Kimchi- work functions, birthday parties, quiet dates, coffee catch ups, breakfasts, anniversaries, desserts, cocktails. Tuatara beer, Garage Project cans, Asahi on tap, and a range of wines and cocktails are available in the beautiful courtyard bar.

The perfect spot for those trying to uptake the intake of probiotics- there’s a million ways to eat kimchi here- and the spicy delicious fermented cabbage is sprinkled all over the menu. But don’t fear if that’s not your appeal- there are many other Asian fusion dishes on the menu. Worth the trip downtown for those dwelling in the suburbs (you may find yourself coming from as far as Orewa)- there isn’t anything like this in Auckland. No one can get enough of Kimchi.

Words by Abigail Egden & Photography by Sable Heath

Information not correct? Report an error

Location

20 Lorne St, Auckland

Nearby Places

Auckland Art Gallery Toi O Tamaki

An entrance to the gallery.
Place Auckland Editor's Pick
Galleries and museum key icon.

Open all day every day, you can count on the gallery as a sojourn from the bustling city.

Brothers Beer

Bottles on a shelf.
Place Auckland
Goods key icon.

A fine establishment which handles the concocting of craft beer like Picasso handled a brush.

Best Ugly Bagels Auckland

Bagel dough.
Place Auckland
Cafes key icon.

Another culinary gem hidden in the labyrinthine City Works Depot.

Perch

Curtains in the restaurant.
Place Auckland
Bars key icon. Restaurants key icon.

Well worth a visit for its impressive dumplings and cocktail lineup.

Similar Places

OOH-FA

Pizza and wine on a table at OOH-FA.
Place Auckland
Restaurants key icon.

Anyone who appreciates the genius behind Auckland’s Pici - an intimate space with a limited offering, is going to love Ooh Fa: the same owners, the same philosophy and...

Peach's Hot Chicken

Chicken burger and side from Peach's Hot Chicken, Auckland.
Place Auckland
Restaurants key icon.

Don’t fact-check us on this, but we’d say a mouthful of Nashville Hot Chicken has been proven to send serotonin levels through the roof.

Tiger Burger

Outside windows at Tiger Burger.
Place Auckland
Restaurants key icon.

If Korean quirk and good ol’ western burgers once bumped into each other, they've most certainly made themselves at home here on Great N’ Road.

Amano

The cream interior of a large restaurant space.
Place Auckland
Restaurants key icon.

Very few big city eateries pull the masses all hours of the day, seven days a week, but at much loved Amano, this is simply the reality.