Jugnu's Little India Paraparaumu brings the tongue-tingling flavours of North India to Marine Parade at Paraparaumu Beach. It is part of a family of restaurants built on recipes from the kitchen of Premjit Kaur Gill, whose Punjabi cooking anchors a menu of slow-cooked curries, fresh tandoori breads and a few signature dishes from Nepal, Goa, South India and Asia. In the kitchen, traditional tandoors — clay pots fired by charcoal — give the naans and meats their authentic flavour.
The dining room is set up for all kinds of occasions, from family dinners and gatherings to bigger celebrations. The team describes it as a great place for weddings, birthdays, anniversaries and parties, with free hire for functions. The restaurant is fully licensed and BYO wine only, and it is also the place to find mouth-watering Indian sweets alongside the full range of spicy, sour, sweet and hot dishes.
Doors open every day from 4pm to 9:30pm. You can book a table online, order pickup or delivery through the website, or use the Jugnus Little India app to collect loyalty points and receive monthly specials. SuperGold Card holders and students receive a 5% discount.
Seven evenings a week, the kitchen at Jugnu's Little India Paraparaumu gets to work on the cooking it knows best: the legendary dishes of North India, and the Punjab in particular. The restaurant sits at 42 Marine Parade, Paraparaumu Beach — a spot the team describes as a fantastic location for dining and family gatherings, where familiar dishes are built from exotic ingredients and tongue-tingling flavour.
Every menu traces back to a single source: the kitchen of Premjit Kaur Gill, whose recipes came from the Punjab region of North India and anchor everything served here. That heritage shows in the promise of a complete world of taste — spicy, sour, sweet and hot, often in the same meal.
The cooking is deliberately traditional. The tandoors are the old-fashioned kind, clay pots fired by charcoal, and they lend the naan breads and tandoori meats their authentic flavour. Curries are cooked slowly, the way home kitchens across India do it. Around the North Indian core sit a few signature dishes from Nepal, Goa, South India and Asia, and — a point of real pride — mouth-watering Indian sweets.
The Paraparaumu Beach dining room is one chapter of a much larger family story. Little India was started by Sukhmohan (Sukhi) Gill in Dunedin in 1991. His brother Jugnu Gill arrived in New Zealand from New Jersey, USA, where he had built a career as a systems engineer in information technology, working first in London and then in the States. Food and hospitality were always the passion, and he joined his siblings in Dunedin in 1993.
From there the family business grew: a restaurant in Queenstown run with his siblings, then a bar and nightclub in Dunedin, before Jugnu branched out on his own and opened his first Wellington restaurant on 24 December 1997. Today the family operates two restaurants in Wellington city, one in Lower Hutt and one in the heritage Mungavin Homestead in Porirua — and, of course, this one by the beach at Paraparaumu.
Dinner here moves from slow-cooked curries to fresh tandoori breads, with dishes spanning the full range of spicy, sour, sweet and hot. Alongside the main dine-in menu, the restaurant publishes a dedicated vegan menu, a takeaway menu for pickup and delivery, and a separate Jugnu Duniya menu for those keen to explore further. Save room at the end: this is, by its own description, the only place to get mouth-watering Indian sweets. The house farewell says it all — good health and happiness. Enjoy.
The doors open at 4pm, seven days a week, and service runs until 9:30pm. The restaurant is fully licensed and BYO wine only, so you can bring a bottle you love and settle in. It is also a popular pick for occasions: weddings, birthdays, anniversaries and parties are all welcome, with free hire for functions.
Reservations can be made online, and takeaway or delivery orders go through the website or the Jugnus Little India app, which also handles loyalty points and monthly specials. SuperGold Card holders and students with ID receive a 5% discount, with terms and conditions applying. Whether you come for a family dinner, a celebration or a quiet curry by the sea, you will be eating recipes that have travelled a long way — from a Punjabi family kitchen to Marine Parade, Paraparaumu Beach.