The Kimchi Project

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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 Street, 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

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Location

20 Lorne Street, Auckland

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