Korean Bob Restaurant brings authentic Korean cooking to 146 Dee Street in the heart of Invercargill. The restaurant is the work of Jackie Lee and Joseph Hong, who describe it as a dream built on family traditions, cultural exchange, and a love of bringing people together through food.
Jackie grew up in South Korea learning to cook from her mother, who ran a family restaurant, and many of the menu's anchors — bulgogi, bibimbap, kimchi, kimbap, spicy pork and Korean pancakes — come straight from those passed-down home recipes. A professional chef who most recently cooked at The Langland Hotel in Invercargill, she leads the kitchen; Joseph, with years of international marketing experience at SIT Polytechnic, completes the partnership.
Before the restaurant opened, the couple spent years serving these same dishes to friends, students and families in their own home — at times hosting as many as 75 guests during Korean Thanksgiving — and volunteered for three years at Pasta Café in Queenstown, helping serve hundreds of community meals each winter. That spirit of connection shapes the dining room they call a "cultural library": a welcoming space where anyone can experience the warmth, flavours and traditions of Korea.
The menu spans appetisers, hearty mains and a premium BBQ section featuring pork belly and chicken thighs, with drinks and dessert to finish. Lunch is served on weekends from 11am to 2pm, and dinner from 4:30pm to 9pm Tuesday to Sunday.
Dee Street might seem an unlikely place to find the flavours of Korea, but that is exactly what Jackie Lee and Joseph Hong have created with Korean Bob Restaurant in Invercargill Central. For this couple, the restaurant is far more than a business — it is, in their words, a dream built on family traditions, cultural exchange, and a love of bringing people together through food. They describe the space as a "cultural library": somewhere anyone in Invercargill can experience the warmth, flavours and traditions of Korea without leaving Southland.
Jackie grew up in South Korea, learning to cook at her mother's side in the family restaurant. Many of the dishes that anchor the Korean Bob menu — bulgogi, bibimbap, kimchi, kimbap, spicy pork and Korean pancakes — come directly from those home recipes, passed down through generations. It is food with a genuine pedigree: cooked by a professional chef whose most recent post was at The Langland Hotel in Invercargill, but whose craft was learned in her mother's kitchen. That upbringing shows in the details — the kimchi, the pancakes, the marinades — the kind of cooking that is hard to fake.
The menu itself was tested long before the doors opened. Jackie and Joseph spent years inviting friends, students and families into their home to share these same dishes — at Korean Thanksgiving they have served as many as 75 guests at a sitting. They also spent three years volunteering at Pasta Café in Queenstown, helping to serve hundreds of community meals every winter. Those experiences cemented a simple belief that runs through everything at Korean Bob: food is about more than eating — it is about connection.
The menu moves from appetisers through hearty main dishes to a premium BBQ section built around pork belly and chicken thighs, before finishing with drinks and dessert. The Korean classics hold court. Bulgogi brings sweet-savoury marinated beef; bibimbap is the celebrated mixed rice bowl; spicy pork answers for anyone who likes serious heat. Kimbap and Korean pancakes make excellent lighter plates, kimchi accompanies nearly everything, and the drinks list includes makgeolli, Korea's traditional rice wine. Appetisers are an easy starting point for a table, and there are desserts to finish if you have saved room. Nearly every dish has a story attached.
Joseph's years in international marketing at SIT Polytechnic shape the welcome and the website, while Jackie runs the kitchen. Together they have built Korean Bob around the idea that a restaurant can be a small piece of cultural exchange — a place where Invercargill diners and visitors from further afield sit down to the same food the couple once served to a houseful of guests.
Korean Bob sits at 146 Dee Street in Invercargill. Hours are worth noting before you set out: lunch is served on weekends only, from 11am to 2pm, while dinner runs Tuesday to Sunday from 4:30pm to 9pm, and the restaurant closes on Mondays. On weekend days the kitchen pauses between lunch and dinner service before the evening sitting begins. Reservations can be made through the website's contact page, or by calling the restaurant on 03-442-3632 or emailing [email protected], and there is online ordering for anyone who would rather enjoy the food at home.
Whether you are a longtime fan of Korean cooking or about to try bibimbap for the first time, Korean Bob offers something increasingly rare: dishes with a real family story, cooked by a chef who learned them at the source, served in a room built around the belief that a shared table is the fastest way to make friends.