Goku Japanese Restaurant has brought its style of refined Japanese dining to Remuera Road. Newly opened and now fully taking reservations, the Auckland kitchen is Kappō-style: seasonal ingredients prepared with traditional techniques and given a modern presentation, with chefs working directly in front of guests. The restaurant is the newest expression of a small New Zealand group whose Queenstown site is that town's original shabu shabu and sukiyaki restaurant, choosing fresh, high-quality ingredients from Japan and local markets — each location, Goku says, offers its own unique expression of Japan.
In Remuera, that expression runs from an a la carte of zensai, sashimi, nigiri sushi, tempura, fried dishes and hoba-yaki to nabe and sukiyaki hot pot, with a seasonal kaiseki menu alongside. Lunch centres on the Shokado bento trays, which combine chef's-selection sashimi and salmon roll sushi with daily grilled fish, simmered Kuruma ebi, tamagoyaki and miso soup, while the grilled unagi bento with sansho, grilled rice noodles and nabe complete the midday list.
A guiding phrase on the restaurant's site — 心即料理 料理即心 — pairs cooking with heart. Goku Auckland serves lunch from 12pm and dinner from 5.30pm, Tuesday to Sunday (closed Mondays), with online bookings, gift vouchers and group enquiries welcomed through its website.
Auckland's Remuera Road has a new destination for Japanese food. Goku is now fully open at Shop 1/D, 415 Remuera Road, taking reservations for lunch and dinner and introducing the city to Kappō-style dining — a traditional format in which chefs prepare dishes directly in front of their guests.
The name may already be familiar to South Island travellers. In Queenstown, the Goku group operates what it calls the town's original shabu shabu and sukiyaki restaurant, built on fresh, high-quality ingredients chosen from Japan and local markets. The Auckland opening is deliberately not a copy. Each location, the restaurant explains, offers its own unique expression of Japan — and in Remuera that expression is Kappō: refined Japanese dining where seasonal ingredients are prepared with traditional techniques and given a modern presentation.
Kappō, as Goku describes it, is a traditional Japanese dining style where chefs prepare dishes directly in front of guests, with a focus on seasonality, craftsmanship and interaction. Rather than a quiet hand-off from a hidden kitchen, the meal becomes something you watch being made — the cutting, seasoning and plating all part of the experience. The restaurant's motto, written on its site in Japanese as 心即料理 料理即心, ties that craft directly to the heart.
Lunch is a carefully curated affair built around the Shokado bento. Shokado Bento A combines chef's-selection sashimi (three varieties) and salmon roll sushi with a seasonal salad, daily grilled fish, simmered Kuruma ebi (Japanese tiger prawn), Japanese omelette, Saikyo miso grilled halloumi and New Zealand ginkgo nuts, finished with steamed Japanese rice and aka miso soup. Bento B varies the seasonal dishes — daily grilled fish, seasonal salad, chawanmushi and tiger prawn and oyster mushroom tempura — and adds today's sweet selection for dessert. A third option, the grilled unagi bento with sansho, pairs grilled eel with sansho pepper tamagoyaki, salad and miso soup, while grilled rice noodles and nabe round out the lunch list.
Come dinner, the a la carte opens up. Zensai might be a seasonal salad or house-made natto miso, before a sashimi section running from a three-kind selection to a chef's platter of five kinds, portioned for two to six guests, with seasonal toro and scampi. The nigiri list offers a chef's selection in sets of five through 16 pieces, alongside toro, scampi, sea urchin and salmon roe. Tempura comes as a chef's selection of prawn, shiitake mushroom, scallop and kumara, plus seasonal vegetables and king prawn. Fried dishes include agedashi tofu, blue cod fishcake, crispy shiitake harumaki, NZ king crab harumaki and karaage chicken, while the hoba-yaki section carries eggplant with natto, marked vegetarian. Sukiyaki and nabe cover the hot-pot side of the menu, and a seasonal kaiseki menu sits alongside the regular list.
Goku Auckland closes on Mondays. From Tuesday to Sunday, lunch runs 12pm to 2pm and dinner 5.30pm to 10pm, so plan around the split service. Bookings are made through the Book a Table button on the website, and the restaurant notes reservations are now available at the Auckland location.
For occasions, the group keeps a dedicated groups and functions page, and gift vouchers can be purchased online. Updates and new dishes appear on the restaurant's Facebook and Instagram pages.
However you approach it — a bento at lunchtime, a slow hot pot at dinner, or the theatre of the Kappō counter — Goku brings a distinctly Japanese sense of occasion to Remuera Road, one that honours tradition while letting New Zealand's seasonal produce speak for itself.