The Diversity Restaurant sits on Mandeville Street in Riccarton, bringing what the family calls the taste of Asia to Canterbury. Once known as Khmer Angkor, this cozy, family-owned restaurant serves a wide range of authentic Asian dishes with deep Cambodian roots, all made in-house by a small team of chefs using market-fresh ingredients — including Asian herbs and vegetables from the family's own garden, which they have kept since arriving in Christchurch in 1992.
The restaurant is the latest chapter in a three-decade journey. Founders Saroeun and Kim-Hong Seng migrated from Cambodia in 1992, and food became their way of building a new life: dad grew Asian herbs and veggies in his greenhouse, mum — whose own mother was a renowned village caterer in Kampot Province, famous for her Cambodian Red Curry — cooked professionally, and the family went on to run a bakery and noodle house in Sydenham, Khmer Angkor in Kaiapoi, and a city-centre restaurant before settling in Riccarton as The Diversity.
Today, owners Amit and Rom Seng, with head chef Mey, run a warm room where customers are treated 'as guests to our home'. The venue is fully licensed, with house wines, tap beers, cocktails and mocktails; it offers dine-in and takeaway, partners with Uber Eats and DoorDash for delivery, hosts functions for up to 120 seated guests, and caters off-site for everything from office shouts to weddings. Featured in Storybites videos and praised by locals for exceptional food and service, it is a genuine piece of Christchurch's food story.
On Mandeville Street in Riccarton, The Diversity Restaurant serves food its family describes as a lifetime in the making. The tagline reads 'World's Best of Asian Cuisine' — confident, yes, but behind it sits one of Christchurch's more remarkable food stories: a family who fled Cambodia's genocide, put down roots in the garden city, and spent three decades turning home-cooked Khmer food into one of the city's most-loved small restaurants.
The story begins in July 1992, when Saroeun and Kim-Hong Seng arrived in New Zealand with their family after fleeing the genocide in Cambodia. Christchurch, mum Kim-Hong decided, was 'Heaven on Earth'. Adjusting to a new climate with little money and no access to the food of home, dad started a vegetable garden; mum cooked, preserved, and stretched every harvest into daily meals. That garden never stopped growing — today the family's greenhouse supplies the Asian herbs and vegetables that end up in the restaurant's dishes.
Cooking ran in the blood. Kim-Hong's mother was the village caterer in Ka'Som Ork, Kampot Province, famous for her Cambodian Red Curry, and Kim-Hong pursued her own dream — 'I love cooking, I just want to cook!' — working in the first Cambodian kitchen and, at the time, the only Cambodian Noodle House in Christchurch, on Colombo Street, before the earthquake destroyed it.
The family's own hospitality journey has wound across the city: a bakery and noodle house in Sydenham, sold after three years; then Khmer Angkor in Kaiapoi, serving authentic Cambodian cuisine for another three; then a city-centre site at Hoyts EntX, where they operated through Covid for a year and a half before a redevelopment forced another move. When the time came to begin again, they widened the lens: The Diversity was born on Mandeville Street, still anchored in Khmer cooking but reaching across Asia's cuisines.
Today the kitchen is led by owner and executive chef Rom Seng, with Mey as head chef and Amit as owner-manager. Everything is made in-house, built on market-fresh ingredients and what the family describes as honest cooking.
Regulars have their favourites. Lunch reviewers rave about the chicken skewers and fresh prawn spring rolls, and one diner declared their soup 'the most amazing soup'. The Cambodian Red Curry carries the deepest roots — the recipe that made grandmother famous back in Kampot. Noodle dishes nod to the family's noodle-house history, and herbs and vegetables from the family garden thread through the cooking.
The bar is fully licensed, with house wines, beers on tap, cocktails and mocktails. If you would rather eat at home, The Diversity partners with Uber Eats and DoorDash for delivery, and dine-in or takeaway is on offer throughout the week.
The Seng family sees the restaurant as an extension of their dinner table — food, they say, brings everyone together as one at their tables. That spirit scales up: the venue hosts functions for up to 120 seated guests and offers off-site catering for corporate events, office shouts, birthdays, housewarmings, engagements and weddings, with the team happy to work to special requirements and budgets.
The restaurant has also caught the eye of Storybites, the New Zealand culinary brand sharing chefs' stories, collaborating on numerous videos about what makes the Cambodian dishes so special. Diners agree: one called the food 'exceptional' and vowed to return 'again and again'; another scored a family meal 10/10 for its vastly different but exceptionally good flavours.
You will find The Diversity at 3/57 Mandeville Street, Riccarton. Hours are Tuesday to Sunday, 11am–2pm and 4.30pm–9pm, with Monday open for dinner only from 4.30pm. Bookings can be made through the website, and group enquiries are welcome — call (03) 261 6104 or email [email protected]. Whether it is a quick lunch between offices or a long family dinner, expect food prepared, in the family's own words, with so much love and care.