Culprit occupies an upstairs, loft style room at 12 Wyndham Street in central Auckland, up a staircase from the street, and it has been cooking for Aucklanders since 2016. Owner and chef Kyle Street describes his food as nostalgic New Zealand cooking with a modern global edge, and his dishes often wink at a Kiwi childhood while borrowing flavours from far beyond these shores. The cooking is playful and big on flavour rather than formal or fussy. The kitchen also runs with a deliberately small team, which is part of the reason the restaurant serves a single chef’s choice tasting menu instead of a long list of options to choose from.
That menu changes roughly every two months to track the seasons and the growers supplying the kitchen, gathering ingredients from all over New Zealand before giving them what the restaurant calls its own global twist. Suppliers get credit by name on the menu, from spring vegetables grown in Cambridge and wasabi leaf from Canterbury to wild kingfish landed by Lee Fish and oysters from Mahurangi. A meal moves from raw dishes through warm bites and a palate cleanser to a shared main and a sweet treat. Most dietary needs can be handled, and the dietary versions of the menu swap in dishes such as salt baked celeriac, braised carrot tartare and an eggplant parm.
The spring menu might open with wild kingfish in a frozen solkadhi of mangosteen and coconut, or Ora King salmon tartare tucked into a wasabi leaf taco with Granny Smith apple. Warm bites have included Rohan’s focaccia with roast chicken butter, tandoori spiced oyster mushrooms with tofu ranch and hot golden syrup, and a lamb crépinette meatball with courgette spaghetti and puttanesca. Tiger nut milk bottle sweets dusted with chilli sherbet reset the palate before a shared venison flat iron with blackberry jus, served with whipped potato and green tomatoes in jalapeño ranch, with a pork stuffed roast duck as the alternative. Clevedon strawberries with matcha pavlova and labneh cream round things off.
The wine list favours small allocations from owner operators, artisans and family producers, mixing new world and old, and it changes constantly, with suggested pairings offered alongside the tasting menu. Cocktails carry the same sense of humour, from a frozen slushee made in house to drinks built on concoctions from the kitchen, plus local takes on classics such as a miso old fashioned, a Negroni and a Hauraki Gulf sour using Waiheke whisky. Larger groups can share a dedicated group tasting menu, and the restaurant also handles weddings and private events. Anyone wanting an aperitif or a nightcap can cross the road to Curio, Culprit’s sister cocktail bar, which is styled around nineties kitsch and cult cinema.
Address: Level 1, 12 Wyndham Street, Auckland CBD, Auckland 1010
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