Khao Soi Welly Eatery brings the comforting flavours of Northern Thailand to Tory Street in the heart of Wellington's Te Aro. Opened in 2025 by the team who spent three years serving the city through Yor Yak Thai Eatery, the restaurant was created around a single guiding idea: introducing Wellington to khao soi, one of Thailand's most beloved dishes and the heart of the concept from day one.
Khao soi is the signature dish of Northern Thailand — a fragrant curry broth served with soft egg noodles or rice noodles and tender slow-cooked meat, most commonly chicken or beef, topped with crispy fried noodles and accompanied by pickled mustard greens, fresh lime and sliced shallots. Here it anchors a menu of Northern Thai street food built on carefully crafted recipes and traditional techniques, aiming to deliver the real taste of khao soi and a genuine experience of Northern Thai comfort food.
Around the namesake bowls you'll find Thai street-inspired small bites, including the popular herbal grilled chicken and sai oua, a Northern Thai sausage, along with colourful drinks and Thai-flavoured bingsu desserts for a light, refreshing finish. The eatery is a casual, welcoming spot for lunch, dinner or a sweet treat, greeting both bookings and walk-ins — groups of more than eight can arrange a reservation by phone or email. The journey has since extended north with a sister Khao Soi location in Remuera, Auckland, sharing the flavours of Northern Thailand with more diners across New Zealand.
Khao Soi Welly Eatery sits at 3/100 Tory Street in Te Aro, right in the heart of Wellington, and it does exactly what its name promises: it puts khao soi — the beloved curry noodle dish of Northern Thailand — at the centre of everything. The restaurant arrived in 2025, but its story started a few years earlier. The same team spent three years serving Wellington through Yor Yak Thai Eatery before building a concept around the dish that inspired them most. Khao Soi was always the heart of that idea, created to share the authentic flavours the team grew up with.
That vision has since grown beyond the capital. With a second location now open in Remuera, Auckland, Khao Soi is taking its take on Northern Thai comfort food to more diners across New Zealand — but Tory Street remains where it all came together.
If you haven't crossed paths with the dish before, it's worth knowing what you're ordering into. Khao soi is a signature dish from Northern Thailand, prized for its rich balance of flavours and textures. It begins with a fragrant curry broth, served with soft egg noodles or rice noodles and tender slow-cooked meat — most commonly chicken or beef. The bowl's famous flourish is a topping of crispy fried noodles for crunch, and it arrives with pickled mustard greens, fresh lime and sliced shallots alongside, so each spoonful can be tuned to taste.
At Khao Soi Welly Eatery, the signature noodle bowls sit at the centre of the menu, prepared with a balanced blend of spice, richness and freshness. Whether you lean toward chicken or beef, the structure of the dish — soft noodles below, crunch on top, condiments to customise — makes it one of the more engaging bowls you'll find in Wellington.
The khao soi bowls may be the headline, but they're not the whole story. Alongside the noodles, the menu offers a selection of Thai street-inspired small bites. Two have quickly become popular: the herbal grilled chicken and sai oua, a Northern Thai sausage that's a classic of the region's street food. They're the kind of dishes made for the middle of the table, to share while the broth does its work.
Then there's dessert, which here is a genuine drawcard. The eatery's Thai-flavoured bingsu — a shaved-ice dessert — has become popular in its own right, offering a light and refreshing finish to a rich, curry-forward meal. Colourful drinks round out the menu, making it easy to turn a quick lunch into a full occasion: small bites to share, a steaming bowl, and something cold and sweet to finish.
The space is pitched as a casual and welcoming spot — the kind of place that works equally for a weekday lunch, an unhurried dinner, or simply a sweet treat on a stroll down Tory Street. Both bookings and walk-in guests are welcome, so you can plan ahead or roll the dice; for large group bookings of more than eight people, the team asks that you call or email so they can look after the reservation properly.
Hours run across two services, Tuesday to Sunday: lunch from midday into the afternoon and dinner from 17:00 to 21:00, with Mondays closed. If you'd rather eat at home, online ordering is available through EasyEats.
Wellington is no stranger to Thai food, but a restaurant devoted specifically to khao soi is a rarer thing — a single-dish inspiration expressed through a full menu of Northern Thai comfort food. The team behind it cooked their way into Wellington's affections over three years as Yor Yak, and Khao Soi Welly Eatery is the distilled result: a fragrant curry broth, noodles soft and crispy in the same bowl, sausage and chicken from the grill, and bingsu to finish.
Come hungry, order the namesake, add a share plate or two, and don't leave without tasting the bingsu. That's the Khao Soi way.