TOKKI
Cuisine: Korean
Phone: (09) 488 0888
Address: 87 Kitchener Rd, Milford
Reservations: Accepted
Drinks: Fully licensed
From the menu: “House menu” $75pp
The North Shore has a cluster of decent restaurants these days, and now celebrated Auckland chef Jason Kim (Gochu) has arrived to add one more.
Joining The Engine Room, Nanam, Cave a Vin and Stanley Street Bistro is Tokki, a small kitchen serving mostly traditional Korean food to locals with extremely grateful looks on their faces.
I was eating with the stylish food writer/model/outrage-merchant Albert Cho and picked him up from Herne Bay in my 2005 Kia Sportage, surely the worst car he has ever seen, let alone crossed the Harbour Bridge in, though he was nice enough not to say anything as the air conditioning oscillated violently and unpredictably between “arctic wind” and “forest fire”.
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Advertise with NZME.Parking in Milford was tight and I was forced to reverse into a very small space. I was quite pleased with my efforts, but I hadn’t got as close to the curb as I thought, so when we returned and the cars adjacent had departed, my Kia looked like a vehicle abandoned in a police chase while the officers pursued the subject on foot.
At $75, Tokki’s house menu is a great option: a succession of fantastic bites that are almost entirely savoury, finishing with a simple toasted marshmallow concealing a cube of icecream.
The icecream, like a couple of other dishes, featured an ingredient I didn’t recognise when it was announced and which I would otherwise have asked them to write down, but when you’ve asked somebody to say it a couple of times already and everybody else is ready to move on, you sometimes have to cut your losses.
I can tell you that over nine courses you will taste some things you know well soy sauce, vinegar, gochujang as well as some you might not have heard of, including Korean herbiage which Jason is particularly excited about showcasing as winter turns to spring.
It’s a very pleasant dining room, with room for 20 or so people and a curved bar with a lot of drinks behind it.
The wine list has had some expert consultation and is reason enough to visit I had a couple of long, luscious whites but politely declined a hoon on chef Jason’s prized whiskey trolley, a post-dinner indulgence that he wheels from table to table along with a box of glossy chocolates infused with another Korean flavour I didn’t catch but that I will describe here as “Christmassy”.
Jason is currently trying to bolster the trolley selection by importing an 18-year-old bottle of something-or-other which sounds like it’s going to set him back about as much as that curved counter fit-out, but when he told me about it he looked the happiest I’d seen him all night so, you know, follow your dreams everybody.
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Advertise with NZME.There is a real sweetness to the room, which has been sparingly but thoughtfully decorated with, well, rabbits mostly (Jason was born in the year of the rabbit, or “tokki” in Korean).
It’s not all flash “it reminds me of eating out in Asia,” said Albert as he walked through the kitchen and outside to the toilet (although based on my time in Asia I reckon they’ll need to adopt a friendly kitchen cat to make the experience truly authentic).
One nice thing about that trip past the chefs is you notice how reassuringly simple their setup is: a basket of glowing coals, a fryer and not a lot else.
The food is sensational: their raw fish dish is drenched in a creamy Korean mustard sauce that really kicks, then drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with lightly aniseed-flavoured chopped herbs.
The eggplant dish was a huge hit, each finger of aubergine coated in a classic fish and chip batter, fried until very crunchy, and glazed in soy, vinegar and chilli.
There are four huge pieces of that eggplant, stacked up like Jenga pieces, and this was an early clue that Tokki loves to feed you it’s less a tasting menu and more of a Korean banquet, though unlike other banquets the dishes are eaten in single file.
Melt-in-the-mouth wagyu in a black garlic sauce with a bright white daikon kimchi; a geometric cube of juicy pork almost still sizzling on the end of its skewer with more fermented goodness on the side; a chicken wing he’d somehow deboned and stuffed with prawns, then crumb-coated and fried before finally plating it with a truffly mushroom sauce.
It’s all a great mix of refined cheffery and hot comfort food and between courses you get to enjoy the room and drink from one of the best short winelists in the city.
For a local this is a no-brainer; for those south of the bridge it’s worth a special trip.
More On The Shore
Restaurants, wine bars, sensational flavours.
Stanley Avenue Is Milford’s Gloriously Indulgent Wine Bar. The North Shore wine bar and bistro has an unmistakable nous for creating charming plates.
Birkenhead’s Duo Looks Like A Suburban Eatery Turned Local Institution. It’s That And More. On the North Shore, the all-day eatery cooks freely (and confidently) with the seasons.
Milford’s Portal To Paris? A Wonderful Little Wine Bar. Find a blackboard menu and a charcuterie slicer, scorched sourdough and garlicky burrata.
At This Birkenhead Bistro, Book Your Table & Then Book Your Beef. The Beef Wellington was a dish of such topographical singularity that I can’t forget it.
