Nocturnalists is brought to you in partnership with Tātaki Auckland Unlimited.

Nocturnalists are spirited members of Auckland’s nighttime scene, and in this series they take us on a tour of their favourite spots in the city after 5pm. Up first is J.Y Lee.

Photos by Sophie Miya-Smith shot on location at RE:Seoul and The Audio Foundation. 

If you’ve been to a gig in Auckland anytime in the past few years, there’s a pretty good chance you’ve seen Jong-Yun J.Y Lee at work. A saxophonist and flautist (who also plays a little bit of clarinet), he’s shared stages with acts as varied as Tom Scott, Chaii, Dave Dobbyn and Romi Wrights, and played with combos including Yoko-Zuna, The Circling Sun and the DAYBUS Jazz Orchestra. As a musician, J.Y is well-versed in Auckland after dark. He sat down with Emma Gleason to share some of his favourite spots – including where to get a Korean dish that’s the ultimate hangover cure.

What do you love about the city?

I love my community and the music scene. There’s a really vibrant creative scene here and there’s so much going for the size of the city. There’s so much amazing stuff that comes out of here… so many musicians and creative people just doing cool stuff.

Do you have any favourite venues?

Whammy and Public Bar. I spend a lot of time there. They’re a very integral part of the fabric of the music scene in Auckland. I’ve played so many gigs there. As a musician, it’s important to be able to find community, play music and develop your craft… Audio Foundation is hugely integral as well.

What makes the Audio Foundation special?

They do artist residencies, installations and exhibitions, so it’s like an art-gallery-slash-venue space. There’s a lot of experimental noise music, jazz-adjacent stuff and improvised music there.

So, a place you can go to get your mind blown a little bit. Do you remember your first show there?

Yeah, it was 2013 I think… we were putting on a gig there for the first time. The person who runs that place, Jeff Henderson, is a saxophone player as well; he’s always pushing and leading the avant-garde, improvised jazz side of things. I’ve played a lot of gigs with him. I’m learning a lot from playing with him in that sort of world.

You’ve played with some big artists like Dave Dobbyn too, have those shows been at some of the city’s grander venues?

Yeah, those venues are really cool. Having those sorts of spaces in Auckland is so important. When you play in Auckland Town Hall or The Civic, it’s a bucket list sort of thing… I played at the Town Hall with Tom Scott and Avantdale Bowling Club. That was the best. That would have been 2022.

I hear you’re a regular at Lim Chhour Food Court on Karangahape Road? What do you love about that kind of dining format?

I think it’s something about having multiple options of places. But especially places like Lim Chhour, they’re so old school, right? And that’s what I love about it. Food courts are kind of disappearing. Like there used to be Food Alley, that was such an iconic place.

And Mercury Plaza. What’s your favourite place at Lim Chhour food court?

Swordsman Chinese Cuisine. It’s definitely an underrated spot. All the food there is really good.

What’s your order?

I usually get the beef brisket and potato with rice. There’s also sautéed pork in Chongqing style. Those are my go-tos… Pretty much anytime I come into town and I’ve got a gig or something and need to get a feed, if that place is open, I’ll usually go there.

I hear you like Queens Court food court too? I feel like that place is great, but a bit slept-on.

Definitely. It’s kind of hidden away and not many people know about it. You kind of look past it… which I did a couple times, before actually going inside it.

Yeah, same. 

And then I was just like, oh, maybe I’ll just like, go inside and check it out sometime. There’s a Persian spot there…

Feri Cuisine. It’s meant to be amazing and I really want to try it. What have you eaten there?

The kebab kobideh. There are a whole lot of variations of that…There’s also so many good Chinese spots in Queens… There’s a rice noodle spot, Gui Rice Noodle, that’s really good… I guess that’s the thing I like about the food court vibe as well… these kind of mom-and-pop, low-key sorts of shops, not trying to be fancy.

Like maybe there’s one gas burner, but they’re making something amazing.

I find that at places like that, the food’s the best… And if the food’s good, that’s all that matters, right? 

Another kind of slept-on area is that top block of Queen Street across the road from Myers Park. What can you recommend up there?

RE:Seoul. That’s a Korean spot that just recently opened up. The thing I usually get there is soondae guk, which is a pork soup with Korean blood sausage – they chop that up and put that in there. There’s something very healing, very comforting about it… I get it whenever I’ve had a night out, or need to replenish myself. It’s the best hangover cure.

Hot tip.

Yeah, so you have your soup, and then they give you a bunch of condiments – things like salted shrimp, perilla seed powder, salt, chilli paste and stuff – and you add those in and adjust the taste, dump all that in and just mix it up. That’s the thing I end up getting all the time, whenever I’m feeling like I need my Korean food fix. 

Your family is Korean, right?

Yeah I was born in Korea, but came here when I was two years old. I grew up eating Korean food. That’s what I end up cooking at home as well. So yeah, I go to RE:Seoul, get that stew and it replenishes my Korean levels.

What are some of your nighttime haunts when it comes to music?

Definitely Whammy, Public Bar and Audio Foundation. And a place I play gigs at called The Nightcar.

That bar on Imperial Lane, off Vulcan Lane, right? It’s very cool.

Yeah, they have gigs at Nightcar every Tuesday night, and we play jazz there once a month.

I read that owner Daren Zhou was inspired by the lounge-bar train carriage in Snowpiercer. That’d be such a beautiful place to play jazz.

Yeah, we’ve been doing that for the last two years. Laura Lopéz Lopéz, who works at Goblin now, used to be the bar manager at Nightcar and got that music stuff started. Laura’s awesome, super supportive of music and the arts.

Are there any upcoming gigs or music events you’re looking forward to this year?

I want to see Fat Freddy’s Drop at The Civic. Founding member Mu [Christopher Faiumu] passed away last year, so this is kind of the first time that they’re having a new iteration of the band, with live drums and bass… Cory Champion, a drummer from Wellington, is playing drums in the band and Johnny Lawrence is on bass… I’ve seen Fat Freddy’s a bunch of times, but this will be different.

Watching them at The Civic will be amazing. It’s such a beautiful venue.

Seeing them in that space will be pretty special. They’re an amazing band and obviously they’re New Zealand icons.

Anything else?

This Japanese guitarist, Masayoshi Takanaka, is playing at the Town Hall in April… I’m really keen to see that. He does like jazz fusion, but with a tropical island vibe.

We get so many interesting artists coming down to New Zealand. Not to mention the whole local scene. There’s stuff happening all the time. And Auckland is a Unesco City of Music! Which people forget.

Yeah. I feel very fortunate and lucky to have grown up here. And to be part of the scene. The music scene here is just really special. So many people are doing different things. It’s quite unique in the sense that because it’s so small, everyone knows each other, and everyone’s collaborating and doing stuff together, so it’s a big melting pot.

There’s just so much happening within a three-kilometre radius, with so many venues in the city.

Yeah, and because of that, it’s like a small village, right? And everyone just kind of does different stuff, plays in different bands, creatively feeding off each other. I think that’s what really creates the unique scene here. It’s like nowhere else.

Any night of the week you can go out and there’ll be something cool on.

A lot of friends who go overseas and check out other places, like New York, Europe and Asia, they always come back like, “man, New Zealand, it’s really special”. There’s kind of nowhere else like it. I think there’s something about having the freedom to just do whatever the fuck we want. I think that’s what kind of creates this unique, incredible music.

This content was created in paid partnership with Auckland by Night. Become a Nocturnalist – head to Discover Auckland to find out what that the Auckland city centre has to offer after 5pm.