Hazy Tiger brings Korean food and cocktails together on Durham Street West in Auckland’s city centre, and it is hard to walk past: a giant neon tiger glows out front, and the room behind it carries the theme on with neon strips, booths and tiger print walls. It opened in August 2024 from the team behind Seoul Night, and the fit out mixes bold Korean inspired design with exposed industrial ceilings, timber panelling, cosy booths and high tables. The mood is lively and the venue sees itself as a bar every bit as much as a restaurant, somewhere for a casual dinner, drinks with a group of mates, a birthday or an end of year team party.
Instead of big platters, the kitchen sends out Korean dishes in small, tapas style portions grouped into three tiers, so a table can work through plenty of flavours without anyone being stuck with a single big dish. Traditional ideas get a modern and sometimes playful turn, with bulgogi folded into tacos or tossed through fettuccine with perilla seed, and snapper crudo dressed with plum and Dijon oil. Gochujang supplies much of the heat, turning up in a sweet and sour cucumber salad and in the butter spooned over grilled tiger prawns, while the kitchen’s own kimchi mayo and soy sauce anchor other plates. Vegan, vegetarian and dairy free options carry their own markers.
The smallest plates include chicken skewers, prawn and pork skewers, deep fried chicken skin dusted with the house seasoning, crisp sweet corn with a creamy sauce and charred cauliflower in a maple soy glaze. In the middle tier sit the signature kimchi tuna roll, oil tteokbokki whose rice cakes turn crisp outside and chewy within, yuk jeon beef pancake, a crispy kimchi pancake and grilled eggplant with soybean paste cream. The larger plates bring boneless fried chicken in a sweet yum yum glaze with almonds, bibimbap with three kinds of namul and bulgogi, soft shell crab with Asian chilli salsa, spicy beef brisket soup and slow cooked pork belly in sweet soy, with Basque cheesecake to finish.
Drinks go well beyond soju. A row of tap cocktails pours a Seoul Spiritz, margaritas, a mai tai and an espresso martini, while the house list adds a Hazy Sunset, a yuzu matcha cocktail, a jasmine Negroni and a hibiscus sweet tea, many of them drawing on Korean flavours and seasonal ingredients. Soju comes classic, sugar free or flavoured with peach, green grape, yoghurt, grapefruit or strawberry, with premium bottles such as Hwayo for slower sipping. Traditional choices include makgeolli, Chungha, plum wine and raspberry wine, and mocktails such as the Yuzu Garden mean those skipping alcohol still get something with character to go with their small plates.
Address: 22 Durham Street West, Auckland CBD, Auckland 1010
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