close button

Azabu restaurant review: Metro Top 50 2018

A review of Metro Top 50 2018 restaurant Azabu.

Azabu restaurant review: Metro Top 50 2018

Jun 21, 2018 Restaurants

 <a href=Azabu restaurant review: Metro Top 50 2018" width="680" height="454">

Azabu restaurant review

Metro Top 50 2018 restaurant Azabu in Ponsonby serves smart Japanese/Peruvian food.

Azabu’s Ponsonby Rd frontage is a mysterious letterbox-shaped window carved into a wall next to an oversized door. Open it and you enter the dimly lit dining room, which extends corridor-like on to Maidstone Lane, and the restaurant’s Roji Bar out the back. Near-touching tables amp up the rowdiness of this place, which, with ex-Ebisu host Ken Toyota at the helm, always seems to balance smartness with fun. Chef Yukio Ozeki’s shared-plates menu is legitimately fusion: a hybrid Japanese/Peruvian cuisine called Nikkei. The tuna sashimi tostada illustrates the mash-up: wasabi tartare alongside jalapeño and fish on a tostada strewn with coriander. With an ever-changing selection of Japanese whiskies and cocktails, it’s business time at the front, party out the back.

What it offers Shared-plate options / Good for vegetarians / Good for kids (kids’ menu) / Bar / Craft beer selection / Japanese whisky selection
A favourite dish Eggplant tempura with hatcho miso and spring onion.
Awards Finalist, Best Drinks List
Hours Lunch Wed-Sun, Dinner 7 days
Price $$
Seats 100
Chef Yukio Ozeki

Amano " target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-mce-href="https://www.restauranthub.co.nz/restaurants/auckland/grey-lynn/azabu/?utm_source=noted&utm_medium=booknow&utm_campaign=azabu utm_source=noted&utm_medium=booknow&utm_campaign=Amano">Book now 

azabuponsonby.co.nz
26 Ponsonby Rd, Ponsonby
Ph 320-5292

See here for all of Metro’s Top 50 Auckland restaurants for 2018

Azabu restaurant review: Metro Top 50 2018

Latest

Metro N°448 is Out Now shadow

Metro N°448 is Out Now

In the Spring 2025 issue of Metro: Find out where to eat now in Tāmaki Makaurau with our top 50 restaurants, plus all the winners from Metro Restaurant of the Year. Henry Oliver picks at the seams of the remaking of the New Zealand fashion scene. Matthew Hooton puts the exceptional talent for Kiwi whinging on blast and Tess Nichol recounts her ongoing efforts not to pay attention to everything. Plus Anna Rankin pens a love letter to the 20th Century, a short story from Saraid de Silva and Bob Harvey assists the walls of Hotel DeBrett in talking. Oh, and last, but not least, it’s the end of an era.

Buy the latest issue