Jano Bistro places a contemporary dinner experience inside a restored yellow colonial cottage on Willis Street. Chef Pierre-Alain Fenoux and Diana Goh opened the restaurant in 2014, giving it a personal name drawn from Fenoux's grandfather. The building's fireplace, intimate rooms and garden outlook soften the formality often associated with degustation dining. That contrast remains central to Jano: the cooking can be carefully structured, yet the surrounding cottage keeps the evening warm, relaxed and unmistakably residential in scale.
Guests can choose between two distinct ways of approaching the kitchen. JANO ENSEMBLE is organised around plates for sharing, giving a table more freedom to set its own pace and sequence. JANO EXPERIENCE is the restaurant's degustation format, with a six-course version taking over on Saturdays. Menus change every six to eight weeks, so neither format is tied permanently to one set of dishes. The recurring idea is progression: several smaller preparations reveal the kitchen more clearly than one isolated main course could.
The cooking begins with local produce and a farm-to-table outlook, supported by ingredients from the kitchen garden and occasional foraging. Homemade elements and fire-based technique give the food a crafted character without separating it from its Wellington setting. Lamb and locally sourced fish are representative anchors, while a red-cabbage preparation cooked for twelve hours shows how time can be used as deliberately as heat. Seasonal menu changes allow those methods to follow the best available produce rather than forcing fixed combinations year-round.
Drinks are treated as part of the experience rather than an afterthought. The list combines local and international wines with aperitifs, digestifs, craft beer and spirits, while seasonal house-made non-alcoholic choices give abstaining diners something considered to pair with the food. That breadth suits both dining formats: wine can follow the arc of a degustation, or a table can choose more casually alongside shared plates. Jano is therefore best understood as an intimate evening restaurant where setting, pacing, cooking and drinks reinforce one another.
Address: 270 Willis Street, Te Aro, Wellington 6011, New Zealand
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