From fried chicken and franchises to fusion and fine dining, Korean cuisine has taken over Tāmaki Makaurau, fuelled by the same ‘soft power’ that made K-pop go global and mukbang go viral. Jihee Junn charts the rise.
In 1991, Il Mee on Auckland’s Queen Street became the first Korean restaurant to open in Aotearoa. Serving simple, traditional, no-frills fare, Il Mee emerged at a time when the country’s earliest South Korean immigrants were just starting to trickle in. Many more establishments would soon follow, but as a niche ethnic cuisine for a relatively niche demographic, options remained few and far between. As a result, immigrants lapped up whatever they could get their hands on, which was great news for any half-decent restaurateur.
“Whatever kind of restaurant it was, I don’t think there was anyone out there that was seriously struggling to make ends meet,” says JY Hwang, owner of The Place in Takapuna. “The majority of customers were Korean immigrants who just wanted to eat some food from home, but there wasn’t that much choice. So whenever a new Korean place opened, it was pretty much sure to be a hit.”
This had generally been the case for the last 30 years or so, but Hwang says that recently, that landscape has undergone a significant change. In areas with high concentrations of South Koreans like the North Shore, he estimates the number of establishments has almost tripled since the turn of the decade. It’s not a bad guess, and one that I would supplement with my own theory: there are currently more Korean restaurants in Tāmaki Makaurau than ever before.
Across the city, there are at least two dozen barbecue restaurants ranging from buffet-style joints like Wellbeing and Dak Hanmari to more classic grilling spots like Faro and Jami. Korean fried chicken offerings are even more plentiful, with franchises both local (Ziggle, My Fried Chicken) and international (Nene, bb.q) now popping up on the regular. Specialist joints are also increasing, like sotbap (stone pot rice) restaurant SangSang and tteok galbi (“royal” beef patty) enthusiasts Meet Balls. Fusion offerings are also on the up, from tapas-style hotspots like Hazy Tiger and Dandi to heartier family-style restaurants like Papaghetti. Then there’s the ever-expanding milieu of popular street food options: sweet and salty hot dogs at Mighty Hotdog, freshly made hotteok at No. 1 Pancake, bunshik “snacks” at OBar, and Korean street toast at Cyber Toast 2086.
Beyond restaurants, the amount of easily accessible Korean snacks, drinks and ingredients has also skyrocketed in the last few years. Staples like gochujang (red chilli paste), gim (seaweed), and ramyeon (instant noodles) line Woolworths and Foodstuffs shelves across the country. Refrigerated aisles also boast mandu (dumplings) and kimchi (fermented vegetables) alongside an array of classic Korean ice creams like Melona, Samanco and B.B.Big. According to food brand Ottogi New Zealand, its first foray into mainstream supermarkets was in 2018 when Woolworths began stocking its mayonnaise followed by its Jin and Snack instant noodles. During its first year of operation in 1997, Ottogi’s total sales came to just over $650,000. By 2023, it’d more than quadrupled that amount to over $2.9 million.
While the rise of Korean food’s popularity may feel out-of-the-blue for some, it’s a shift that’s actually been many years in the making. That shift has been global, moving at different paces in different countries, yet undeniably moving all the same. In New Zealand, immigration policies, gastrodiplomacy, the rise of modern fusion, and a desire for healthier foods have all played a role in moving the needle. But the biggest influence of all has undeniably been media and culture (aka “Hallyu”) which – combined with a growing trend towards globalisation fuelled by the internet and social platforms – has transformed the spread of Korean gastronomy into an unstoppable force.
For much of the early 20th century, Korea was one of the poorest countries in the world. Devastated by 35 years of Japanese colonial rule (1910-1945) followed by the Korean War (1950-1953), the country was left in a dire state of poverty, exacerbated by a once-unified peninsula suddenly being split in two. While the north would go down a path of totalitarian dictatorship, the south would enter a period of (delicate) democracy and rapid economic growth powered by conglomerates like Hyundai and LG. As the nation developed and more middle-class families emerged, many began to look abroad for education and economic opportunities, especially in wealthy English-speaking countries like the United States, Canada, Australia, and of course, New Zealand.
In 1987, Aotearoa introduced new immigration rules that emphasised economic, social and humanitarian factors over ethnicity and country of origin. It effectively ended the country’s unofficial “White New Zealand” policy, which opened the door to a much more diverse set of migrants, such as Chinese, Malaysian and Indian. Around the same time, the government in South Korea had introduced a game-changing policy of its own – one that abolished all age and financial restrictions around overseas travel for its citizens.
With fewer legal parameters, Aotearoa’s clean green reputation, and the introduction of direct flights to and from Seoul, the 1990s ushered in the first major wave of Korean immigration. While the 1997 Asian financial crisis would squeeze the flow of new migrants for some time, a second wave would follow in the early 2000s. Today, nearly 39,000 people in New Zealand identify as Korean, with 70% of that population concentrated in Tāmaki Makaurau, particularly on the North Shore in suburbs like Albany, Takapuna, Milford and Sunnynook.
As is the case with many migrants facing linguistic, economic and cultural disadvantages, significant numbers of South Koreans have historically turned to self-employment, particularly within the food industry. While some opened western-style cafes or Japanese sushi bars to appeal to a more mainstream audience, many still opted for Korean restaurants serving hearty, traditional fare, like jjigae (stew), bibimbap (mixed rice bowl), and guksu (noodles). Places like Nolbune, Bongane, Bamboo House and Kangnam Station are just a few that come to mind.
Gukbap (soup with rice) spots with a more limited menu, like Teolbo, and Korean-style Chinese restaurants, like Harimgak, were also popular choices. The Place’s previous owner once ran a specialist mudfish soup restaurant called Namwon Chueotang before opening The Place in 2018 with Hwang on the team. He’s since retired, but his wife would go on to open Golden Castle, a Korean-Chinese restaurant in Henderson.
Nowadays, with a lot more competition and a cost of living crisis that’s led to fewer diners across the board, Hwang says business can be tough. He says when the economy began recovering from Covid losses and more people entered the workforce through the 2021 resident visa scheme, many decided to once again turn to self-employment and open restaurants as a means to make a living.
“The pie [consisting of Korean customers] is small, and with so many restaurants now, that pie needs to be shared with everyone,” he says. “The good news is, thanks to K-pop, K-dramas, K-beauty and so on, Korean food is getting a lot more recognition today. We get a really diverse range of customers now, which is a good thing in the long term. When I first started in 2018, around 90% of the customer base was Korean. But now, it’s probably more like 15-20%.”
When Mike Shin and Sung An Cho opened Pocha in 2007, it was largely seen as a late-night drinking spot serving up anju (drinking snacks) for its mostly young, student customers who were “100% Korean”. As more and more non-Korean customers began to visit, however, they realised some changes needed to be made to some of their more adventurous items.
“We used to serve stuff like beondegi (silkworm pupae) and golbaengi (whelks), but at one point we had to take these out from our menu because non-Koreans would start coming and be grossed out,” says Shin. “But now, because Korean food is so popular, people actually want to try this stuff!”
In addition to a shift in menu to focus more on dining than drinking, Shin estimates that now just 10-15% of his customers are Korean. In response to increased demand from a diverse range of demographic groups, a newer and bigger branch opened in Albany earlier this year – Pocha’s first full menu offering outside its Chancery Square stronghold.
That’s in addition to its spinoff brand, Pocha Chicken, which sells fried chicken at petrol stations. As well as being its most popular menu item, fried chicken is also a defining dish for Pocha – the thing that kickstarted the idea for a restaurant in the first place. In the mid 2000s, Shin (who was working in the hotel business) and Cho (who was working as a cook) realised there were no specialised Korean fried chicken places in Auckland.
“We decided to just make it at home and sell it to some friends, but then word spread and random people started ordering,” recalls Shin. “That was great, but there was a limit to what we could produce in a residential kitchen. So as soon as we saw the demand, that’s when we started thinking about how to make things bigger.”
With its extra crunchy outside and soft and tender inside, coated with an endless range of flavours (spicy, cheesy, nutty, sweet), fried chicken is probably the most popular iteration of Korean food in the world. Its popularity likely comes down to its resemblance to western foods, takeaway ease, and the fact that deep-fried anything just tastes good.
“I was actually a bit surprised when Korean fried chicken gained so much popularity because it’s not really exclusive to Korean food,” says Changzoo Song, associate professor of Korean studies at the University of Auckland. “But I think nowadays it has a very strong stance as a uniquely Korean dish, especially with things like taste and crispiness setting it apart.”
In his 2013 article looking at self-employment practices among Korean-New Zealanders, Song noted there was an overreliance among small businesses on their own ethnic communities which were susceptible to both local (immigration policies in New Zealand) and international (the economic situation in South Korea) change. In order to build resilience into their businesses during uncertain times, it was imperative Korean-New Zealanders “expand their business areas to cater to the needs of mainstream New Zealand consumers”.
Ten years later, it seems many Korean restaurants in Auckland have managed to do just that. One contributor to their success is efforts by the South Korean government to promote the cuisine via the Globalisation of Korean Food Project launched in 2009. Gastrodiplomacy, which has long been a popular method of increasing a country’s reputation through food, has reaped success for many countries in the past, most famously Thailand through its Global Thai campaign launched in the early 2000s.
“The South Korean government has tried a number of ways to raise its soft power in the world,” says Song. “One of these ways is through the film industry while the other is through food. That’s because we know when ethnic foods gain popularity, the economic, cultural and diplomatic impacts are very high.” He says that in New Zealand, one of the project’s initiatives involved running free cooking classes to teach Koreans who wanted to open restaurants how to cook.
Another contributor to Korean restaurants breaking into the mainstream relates to a demand for healthier food options, particularly in western developed nations. While more modern dishes like fried chicken and ramyeon obviously don’t make the cut, many foods do boast health benefits, like kimchi, which is a significant source of probiotics resulting from its fermentation process. Korean food is also generally considered a more nutritionally balanced cuisine, evidenced by dishes like bibimbap, gimbap (a seaweed rice roll not to be confused with sushi), and numerous banchan (side dishes) featuring vegetables like radish, spinach and soybean sprouts.
While all these factors have impacted Korean food’s popularity and accessibility on some level, there’s agreement among restaurateurs, diners and academics alike that what’s really moved the needle has been media and culture. Music, TV shows, film, gaming, literature, cosmetics and fashion have all, in one way or another, increased the appeal of Korean food. It’s a global movement that’s been 30 years in the making, and its impact is only really just beginning.
Fittingly for a term referring to the international craze for Korean culture, the term Hallyu (“Korean wave”) was originally coined in China during the 1990s. Prompted by dramas like Winter Sonata that aired to popular acclaim on Japanese and Chinese TV, Hallyu first manifested in South Korea’s closest neighbours before eventually spreading across the rest of the continent. The emergence of video platforms like YouTube in the mid-2000s amplified Hallyu’s reach to other parts of the world, like South America, with “second generation” K-pop idols such as Big Bang, Super Junior and 2NE1 racking up millions of fans worldwide.
But it wasn’t until 2012, when Psy released ‘Gangnam Style’, that Hallyu saw its first truly global moment. The rapper’s satirical, over-the-top, deeply unserious track commenting on the nouveau riche lifestyles of those in Seoul’s wealthiest district was a strangely intense cultural phenomenon that sent the entire world prancing into a frenzy. Ultimately, Psy did what K-pop’s cooler, more conventional stars tried but never quite managed to do – break into the west. ‘Gangnam Style’ disrupted a longstanding cultural dominance of English-speaking countries like the US, and in many ways, paved the route for groups like BTS in the latter half of the 2010s to enter the American cultural conversation.
The global rise of Korean culture is deeply intertwined with the rise of the internet. When streaming and downloading videos became more common, access to dramas and variety shows beyond traditional TV programming proliferated. As a highly visual genre, K-pop also thrived on multimedia platforms, with ‘Gangnam Style’ famously holding the record for being the first ever YouTube video to reach a billion views. In the food realm, YouTube also facilitated the rise of content creators like Maangchi, who’s been posting authentic, home-cooked recipes online to her now 6.5 million subscribers for the last 17 years.
More recently, the spread of Hallyu has accelerated to new heights as Korean-made content extends across western mediums. First came Parasite – Bong Joon-ho’s 2019 thriller that made headlines for becoming the first non-English-language film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Then when Covid hit and Netflix viewership reached an all-time high, it was 2021’s Squid Game, with its discs of dalgona (honeycomb toffee) candy, that triumphed to become the streaming service’s most-watched show. K-pop also entered a new era as groups like Blackpink, Aespa and Seventeen began releasing English-language songs, recruiting international members and performing at major US and UK festivals.
But it wasn’t just traditional media that found new audiences for K-culture. While the popularity of Korean food has mostly been a side effect of snacks appearing on screen alongside actors and idols, social platforms have allowed entirely new forms of broadcasting to emerge in which the food itself takes centre stage. Mukbang, for example, is an audiovisual feast where hosts eat in front of camera, usually in excessively large quantities, while live streaming to an audience. Viral trends like the fire noodle challenge (using Samyang’s Buldak ramyeon) have been making headlines for years, most recently for being pulled from sale in Denmark for simply being too spicy. With the ascendance of TikTok, hyper-specific memes and trends have also exposed certain Korean foods to an extremely online audience, like hwachae (fruit punch), which we now all know is perfect for when you’re severely dehydrated at 3am. TikTok star Logan Moffitt – aka Cucumber Salad Guy – has also helped popularise dishes like oimuchim (cucumber salad, obviously), homemade kimchi, and naengmyeon (cold noodles). He credits his interest in Korean food to none other than the YouTube queen Maangchi herself.
“Korean food has always been around but there just wasn’t the same level of interest because there was no culture or content that was promoting our country,” says Mike Shin. “With Japanese food, for example, would it really be as popular as it is today if there was no anime? Korea never had [soft power] like that in the past, but now we have a lot of ‘weapons’. People see this food through things like music and drama and they get interested to try.”
At Pocha, budae jjigae (a spicy stew featuring a hodgepodge of American ingredients like Spam) has long been a favourite with diners. According to manager David Lee, many people have been curious to try the dish after it featured on a number of dramas, mukbangs and variety shows, especially those set outdoors as diners struggle against the elements. Sometimes, restaurants will try to get ahead of the curve by simply naming their businesses after pop culture phenomena – Mukbang BBQ Buffet (which sits where Il Mee once stood), for example, as well as Gganbu, whose name is an old school word for “close friend” that was popularised by Squid Game. Then there’s Gangnam Style in Takapuna, which renamed itself from Chowon Puffer to Psy’s viral hit 12 years ago after failing to convince diners its puffer fish dishes were safe to eat.
‘Music, movies, dramas – all these things are intangible, and I think they have a huge influence on how we look at Korean food now because they move so much faster than tangible things like restaurants,” says Jason Kim, owner and head chef at Tokki. “When I was younger a lot of people used to mock me for eating kimchi, but no one’s going to say that now because that just makes you look dumb. Nowadays, so many people are eating it, not just Koreans.”
While Kim has spent the last 18 years working in some of the country’s top kitchens, only a small portion of his career has been dedicated to Korean cuisine. Bar helping out where he could at his parents’ restaurant – the indomitable Yummy Korean BBQ in Birkenhead – Kim’s first professional foray into Korean food would come with the launch of his “New Korean” restaurant Gochu in 2020. Having mostly worked with European cuisine at fine-dining establishments like The Grove, Sidart and Clooney, Gochu allowed Kim to embrace the full spectrum of Korean ingredients and cooking techniques for the first time.
Although a handful of Korean-inspired restaurants (The Kimchi Project, Tiger Burger) existed at the time, Kim believes Gochu marked Auckland’s first real foray into modern, refined Korean fusion cuisine. His signature dish – a silky milk bun filled with kimchi and jeyuk bokkeum (spicy pork stir-fry) with a side of creamy beurre blanc dip – encapsulated his mission to marry his culinary training in French techniques with the South Korean flavours of his childhood home.
“By combining western techniques with Korean flavours, I thought it would be an easier way to introduce Korean food to people who’d never tried it before. A lot of people still don’t know how to eat traditional Korean food, so I thought if I created dishes that had Korean flavours but were presented in a western way, it would be easier for people to try.”
Since the success of Gochu, a number of modern fusion places have opened with their own takes on how to meld Korean and other cuisines. Common combinations include Italian (Aigo’s cacio e pepe tteokbokki), Mexican (Gaja’s bulgogi taco), and Japanese (Seoul Night’s Buldak udon). At Tokki, which opened in 2022, Kim builds on his work at Gochu with food that’s “a little more elevated, a little more advanced”, showcasing a much more refined side to Korean cuisine rarely seen in Aotearoa.
“I hate that so many people think Korean food is just cheap and cheerful. They think it’s all strong, sweet and spicy flavours, and I really just wanted to break that perception,” he says. “Things like fried chicken, barbecue and hotpots are great, but I want people to know that Korean food can also be beautiful, premium, minimal and refined. People usually think that only applies to Japanese food but that’s definitely not the case.
“I believe Korean cuisine is at a similar level to French, Italian, or any other European cuisine out there. It’s just a matter of how we can showcase that.”
Korean food has a relatively brief history compared to other cuisines in Aotearoa, but since its emergence here in the 1990s, the food has experienced a slow and steady growth driven by the ebbs and flows of immigration. In the last few years, however, that growth has rapidly accelerated. Buoyed by highly effective forms of soft power and amplified by fast-moving online channels, Korean gastronomy has been embraced by those in some of the furthest reaches of the world, with New Zealand being no exception.
The Korean food scene of today is dynamic, lively, innovative and in demand. But against the backdrop of a sluggish economy, heightened competition and fickle trends, there’s a high level of uncertainty and risk for business owners, both new and old. The good news is that Korean food still has a whole lot of cards to play. Which card that’ll be next is anybody’s guess.
Some interviews have been translated from Korean.
This feature was made with the support of Asia New Zealand Foundation.