Southern Spice Indian Hyderabadi Cuisine on Cavendish Drive, Manukau, is a modern restaurant devoted to authentic South Indian and Hyderabadi food. The kitchen specialises in all kinds of South Indian dishes, from Hyderabadi Dum Biryani — steamed meat layered through rice with rich spices, true flavours and interesting textures — to Chicken Tikka, Methi Chicken and a range of Indo-Chinese favourites, with Mughlai influences woven through the menu.
Both vegetarian and non-vegetarian diners are well looked after, and dishes come in different levels of spice to suit your taste. The team credit their chefs' years of experience and careful choice of ingredients for the food's authenticity, and guests agree — reviewers describe curries with 'perfect spices to tingle the taste buds' and meals that taste just like food in India.
Dine in every day from 12:00pm to 9:30pm, order takeaway until 10:00pm, or reserve a table by phone. Whether it's a family dinner or a midweek biryani fix, Southern Spice aims to serve, in its own words, a grand celebration of Indian culture.
On Cavendish Drive in Manukau, Southern Spice Indian Hyderabadi Cuisine has quietly become one of South Auckland's destinations for genuine South Indian food. The team describe themselves simply: a modern restaurant with a focus on premium, authentic South Indian flavours, run by chefs with years of experience and a deep knowledge of the ingredients that make Hyderabadi cooking what it is. It is the kind of place where the menu leans on classics rather than trends, and where the aroma of Hyderabadi spices does the advertising.
The kitchen specialises in all kinds of South Indian dishes, and its cooking reaches across Hyderabad's famous table: Mughlai richness, Indo-Chinese comfort food, and above all the biryani the city on the Deccan is known for.
Ask regulars what to order and the answer comes quickly: the Hyderabadi Dum Biryani. It is South India's most popular dish, and Southern Spice makes it the way it is meant to be made — steamed meat layered through rice with rich spices, true flavours and interesting textures in every spoonful. The strong aroma arrives before the plate does, and the About page itself warns, with a wink, that you won't be able to resist it. One reviewer goes further, calling it the best biryani in Auckland and crediting an award-winning chef behind the pass.
Another diner puts the experience more personally: eating here, she wrote, felt 'just like having food in India.' For homesick Hyderabadis and curious first-timers alike, that is the whole point.
The biryani may be the headline, but the menu runs deeper. Chicken Tikka is a standby for good reason, and Methi Chicken — cooked with fenugreek — shows the kitchen's feel for curries that are aromatic rather than merely hot. Alongside them come the flavourful Southern Indian curries, made with a choice of different meats or vegetarian options, so a mixed table never has to compromise.
There is an Indo-Chinese thread through the menu as well, and the team invite guests to 'experience the mixed taste of Mughlai and Indo-Chinese cuisine.' Vegetarian diners are properly catered for rather than treated as an afterthought, with vegetarian and non-vegetarian options running through the whole menu.
One detail worth knowing before you order: the food comes in different levels of spice, adjusted to your taste. If you are spice-shy, say so; if you want the full Hyderabadi hit, the kitchen is happy to oblige. It is a small thing, but it is the difference between enjoying the food and merely surviving it.
Southern Spice Manukau is at 7/53 Cavendish Drive, Manukau, and opens for dining every day of the week from 12:00pm to 9:30pm. Takeaway runs a little later, until 10:00pm, and there is online ordering for the nights when dinner needs to come to you. Tables can be reserved by phone on 09 263 6300 — worth doing on weekends, when the biryani-loving crowd finds its way to Cavendish Drive.
It is also worth knowing that Southern Spice has a sibling branch on Great North Road in New Lynn, but the Manukau kitchen is the one South Auckland regulars call their own. Same recipe book, same spice philosophy — just closer to Manukau's dining corridors, with updates shared on the restaurant's Facebook page.
Whether you come for a long family dinner, a quick takeaway curry, or a biryani you have been thinking about all week, the promise is the same: every dish cooked as, in the restaurant's words, 'a grand celebration of the Indian culture.' Given the guest reviews — curries with 'perfect spices,' presentation praised, food that tastes of home — it is a promise the kitchen appears to keep.