For those that are not familiar, Kazuya is a restaurant near the corner of Symonds Street and Khyber pass in Auckland. It serves contemporary French cuisine with Japanese influence (I think it is slightly more French than Japanese, but the Japanese part is pretty dominant too).
We had the full degustation with matching wines.
First of notes on food.
Amuse Bouche – Hot smoke salmon with salmon caviar and cold spherified green bean soup with parmesan.
- The soup was an amazing experience. For those that are not familiar, spherification is a process where a liquid is contained within a solid skin of that liquid. The clarity of flavour of the soup was excellent. The experience of biting into the sphere and getting the liquid of soup rushed through the mouth with the crunch of the Parmesan was euphoric.
- The smoked salmon was great too, lovely flavour and the contrast to the soup was pleasant. The salmon was warm, but not hot and the soup cold. This would in some ways set the tone for the evening, an emphasis on seafood and vegetables, often served just above room temperature.
Diamond Clam with Coconut foam and lime jelly.
- Simple, clean of flavour and delicious. The lime jelly was powerful and the coconut foam balanced this. The reference to raw fish salad was strong for me. The clams were chewy, but I liked the texture in context. This was served cold. In some ways this was a simple course, three basic components, served together, jelly, foam and clam. In reflection if I consider the shape of the meal as a whole, we can see that the flavours begin the develop and become more robust and complex. At this stage however there was an emphasis on texture and clarity, which would contrast with the next course.
Hokkaido Scallops – Broad bean puree, green tea and seaweed flakes, turnip, pea shoots and Scallop Tataki.
- This was probably the most challenging and thought provoking dish of the night. First off the scallops. I’ve never had scallops quite like these, having them raw in the middle and served just above room temperature was revelation. They were superb. So unlike a New Zealand scallop, earthy and almost smokey in nature. The flavour match of the broad beans, turnip and green tea flakes was intense, but stimulating. It was served in a glass that kept the aromas in. So when you put your nose to it, it smelled of sea, in all its fullness. The scallop had no roe sack, but was still intensely flavoured in a way that frankly I struggle to describe. All I can say is the Hokkaido scallop is a wonder. To me the dish had aspects of its ingredients, but a deep rich complexity to it, like being at the beach and not just getting the salt air, but the seaweed washed on shore, the smell of old fish, even garbage and other things. It was visceral, real and almost profoundly emotional. Somehow it had a deep earthly intensity. The dish was not easy, but it was complex and I still can recall it now.
Red King Crab – Red crab and parsley sauce.
The crab itself was so so. I’m not sure how it was prepared, perhaps poached or boiled and then roasted or maybe just roasted. It was good, but not quite there. Again hard for me to put my finger on, but I’d personally guess that it was slightly over cooked and so a little stringy. It didn’t quite have the flavour I’d hope for. However, this was made up for frankly, by the sauce. The parsley sauce was so delicious, we couldn’t stop eating, sopping it up with some lovely bread provide, if I wasn’t in a nice restaurant I probably would have eaten it with my fingers. I’m not sure what was in it, other than some stock make from the crab, parsley and maybe cream. I suspect the green colour came from extracted chlorophyll, but I could be wrong. Perfectly skimmed with a small amount of oil added. I think if the crab had worked a little better, it would have been one of the best dishes of the night. In contrast to the previous dish, this was relatively easy on the palate.
Texture – 30 vegetables all prepared individually with prosciutto.
- This is the chef’s signature dish and you can see why. It is quite simply astounding. Anyone who has tried cooking things with multiple components, will know how even 6 is a real challenge. This dish has more than 30. It is in some sense ridiculous. It is a challenge to describe the dish and what it is like to eat. I think the easiest way to think of it, is like a story, where you get to choose what happens. You can start with the asparagus or lentils or maybe the beet puree, then move onto the next thing, like the salad with olive oil powder. The dish climaxes as you work you way through, flavour building on flavour, texture on texture and in the end a profound experience. The prosciutto frankly seemed almost unnecessary, although I enjoyed the saltiness of it to contrast the vegetables. Individual highlights for me were the lentils (I wish I knew what they were flavoured with), the pickled cucumber skin, chioggia beets, lotus root, salad, and carrot puree. I remember sitting there fifteen minutes after finishing the dish, with my mouth still buzzing with the flavour. Simply superb.
Paradise Prawn – Paradise Prawn, Morel, White asparagus, prawn and cauliflower foam and crispy snapper.
- This dish was a little more accessible than some of the previous ones. I really liked it, although it suffered from a slight flaw. The Prawn, quite simply superb. It was cooked so that it was just turning red, there were streaks of black on the belly as it wasn’t quite finished in the usual sense, but I actually think this did the prawn absolute justice. As a result the prawn was rare, but succulent, flavoursome and just delicious. I would have thought the prawn would be under cooked, but thanks to its quality and the superb technique behind the cooking it worked flawlessly. The foam was delicious and rich, it reminded me of mayonnaise almost. The white asparagus was great, cooked so it was still crunchy, with some bits shaved into thin curls. I am very partial to white asparagus, so it is a real treat. The morels provided a great accompaniment. I particularly liked how this referenced the classical french technique of poaching fish in mushroom liquor. The crispy snapper was decent, but I think firstly unnecessary and secondly very slightly over done. I mean this in context, some of the seafood cooking, especially the prawn the scallop were perfect. The snapper on another plate might have been fine, but with the underdone style of seafood, the snapper felt out of place to me. Having said this, that prawn, with morel and foam was just to die for. Almost nothing could ruin that.
Wagyu Beef – Charcoal grilled Wagyu with truffle potato puree, Jus and some asian green I’m not familiar with.
- This was probably the easiest of the courses in many senses and also maybe the least interesting. It was perfectly good, wagyu was tender, potato puree was not over truffled and smooth, and the greens were superb (probably my favourite part of the dish). I don’t really have any complaints, but I do feel I did not need this and it seemed really ordinary compared to everything that we had just had. So it was not a let down, but maybe it helped settle the meal and give the menu shape. I also think the need to have red meat or something that wasn’t vegetable or fish perhaps drove this on the menu. I might just note, the wagyu was cooked in a more western style, so it was warmed through, my understanding is often Japanese cook it seared like a piece of tuna. I suppose for most people it would have been good. Solid, nothing to complain about, but also other than the wonderful vegetables in it, I didn’t really make me think about it too much.
Cheese Board – We got a massive selection of cheese. 2 Blues Roquefort and another, a washed rind, an ash rind cheese, a hard cheese from nelson, and couple other soft cheeses.
- The cheese board probably had 300+ grams I’d say of cheese on it, at least for three people, maybe more. It also had baby fig compote and honey with crackers. It was over the top. One thing I will discuss later is the generosity of the restaurant, this course was the epitome of that. So many different kind of cheese, of excellent quality. It was served with 2 glasses of wine (one sherry and one red wine). It was over the top generous, delicious, and wonderful.
Strawberry Tart – Pastry Flavoured ice cream, strawberry jelly, yoghurt mousse, fresh strawberry and a strawberry sugar thing.
- In some ways best of all were the desserts. This one in particular was good. It wasn’t what we were expecting, but it was delicious. The pastry ice cream, was surprising and simply tasted of pastry. Every time you took a bite, you would swear you were eating pastry not ice cream. The jelly was a wonderfully pure expression of strawberry and somehow, inconceivably it all tasted like a strawberry tart.
Valrhona Chocolate cake – Chocolate cake straight out of the over, salted caramel ice cream, mascarpone cream with gold leaf, foam of some kind.
- Another inspired dessert, a beautiful chocolate “cake” (I am not sure how it was made, it was kind of a hot mousse, that was melting over the plate, could have used gellan perhaps), which was bitter and richly flavoured. This was contrasted by the wonderful salted caramel and smooth mascarpone cream. The combination of sweet, bitter and salty was intense, but satisfying. A really wonderful dessert. At this stage the food was starting to get over the top, I think, so we were relieved we were at the end or so we thought.
Petit Four – Green Tea marshmallow, Chocolate Macaron and white chocolate pop rocks sphere.
Just to finish the evening they brought us a few petit four. All were good, it was hard to get much of a feel as the food had overloaded us at this stage I think.
Gift to go home with – Meringue cooking of some kind. They also gave us some cookies to go home with. I didn’t actually try this, as only the women got it.
The wine -
I won’t go into an in depth breakdown of the wine, as I only had a sip of each glass, as I was driving, but I’ll make a few notes. We had the sommelier match the wine with our meal. The matches quite frankly, are probably the best I have ever had. The wine was so consonant with the meal that it felt organically part of each dish. Particular highlights for me were the rose sake, which on its own was odd, but wonderfully complemented the scallop. The red with the cheese was an inspired match as well. The sommelier started us with champagne that he served with a cherry blossom that he had pickled himself the year before. The attention to detail in the wine was first rate. They were also very generous with the wine, offering to top up one of the glasses on occasion and we paid a flat fee. The wine match seemed a very good deal, if you are planning on going. The sommelier was excellent and very helpful.
The service -
The service was pretty good. Because all the staff are Japanese there is an element to Japanese formalism in their service. They are friendly and very hospitable and very adept at knowing when to serve and ask questions. They never intruded on conversation. I found the service top notch. The service was very methodical, although I felt they rushed the first few courses, I suspect because we were the only people there and they wanted to get as many courses through before other people arrived.
The room and everything else-
I the room was nice, the dining spaces were relatively private. The music and space though have a particular Japanese sensibility. I think to a western eye we might see it as a little on the cheesy side. I personally have no problem with it, but in a country where we are generally not known for our formalism, I think this side of things stick out. I don’t think it is a bad thing mind you.
Overall -
I loved the meal. It is interesting to think back on it. I woke up in the middle of the night and wanted to reflect upon each dish. Overall I felt the menu was challenging and took no prisoners. It had a definite goal in mind and was going to take you kicking and screaming to the end. It was emotional and powerful food. As an example to illustrate this point, the food was almost always served on what we might think of as the cold side. Many of the dishes were cold and those that were hot, were generally not that hot. Now this might seem like a problem, but food served not hot, has (to our senses at least) more flavour. Our palate is able to better recognise all the flavours. This I think is better for the food, but often hard if you aren’t used it. Some of flavour combinations, especially in the scallops for example were challenging. Everything tended to be served raw in the centre, this again is challenging for a western palate. The desserts, I think though were probably the easiest to appreciate in this sense. Anyway it didn’t pull many punches.
The food though was not quite like anything I’ve had before, probably the most similar experience I could point to is Coi in San Francisco, but Kazuya leaned on classical French cuisine more and less on California cuisine. It certainly sits apart from the comparable restaurants in Auckland like The French Cafe, Sidart, Merediths, etc… I loved that it wasn’t pandering too much to the need for meat, almost the entire meal was seafood and vegetables, with only the wagyu placating the red meat eaters. What I enjoyed most was that it was a meal I could think about, with layers flavour and meaning. I’ve had two very good meals in the last few months, one at O’connell Street Bistro and one at Kazuya.They are quite different restaurants. In some ways the food at O’connell street was at least as good in an objective cooking sense (although Kazuya was nothing to be scoffed at), but I would much rather go to Kazuya.
It is worth noting that it is not all about the food. The whole experience was wonderful. The wine matching, service and sheer generosity of spirit displayed at Kazuya is not to be under appreciated. While Such a meal is expensive, it was also extremely generous, from the wine pours to the amount of cheese, to the little touches (sending us home with gifts). Everything felt very reasonably priced for what you got and the attention to detail was great. In the end it is a meal I have continued to reflect upon and for me that is a good sign. It was a pleasure to eat there and I hope it will continue to improve. I strongly recommend saving your pennies and going if you can.
For those interested the full degustation was $120 per person and wine match for us was $75 per person.
An error has occurred! Please try again in a few minutes