Neon Lights Catch the Eye at Grey Lynn’s Banziha, a Korean Bar and Restaurant Serving Fried Chicken and House-Made Soju

When Chris Kim originally opened his Williamson Avenue spot last year, it was as cafe Janus Eatery, designed to cater to the area’s daytime crowd and office workers.

But then came Covid-related complications. If inventiveness and flexibility were key to a hospitality business's success before the pandemic, Auckland’s 107-day lockdown proved these qualities even more essential – and with his kitchen closed, Kim pondered a refresh.

“There were two areas [where] I wanted to make changes to start fresh after the lockdown: the interior and the style of food,” Kim tells Broadsheet.

On the last day of May this year, Janus Eatery reopened as Banziha – a bar and restaurant serving Korean sharing plates, organic wine and beer on tap, and soju.

It still operates with a lunch menu during the week until 3pm. You can order Korean classics such as bulgogi, fried chicken (OG or sweet and spicy), bibimbap and vegetable glass noodles, or stop in for a coffee or tea.

Every evening, neon lights draw the eye through its large windows, and video projections of South Korean city scenes shift on an inside wall. The space is simply laid-out with high ceilings and an industrial feel; on the ground level of the recently completed Cider Building development, it might seem an incongruous location, but its busy pathway outside provided Kim with the inspiration for the name and concept change.

“I always thought the inclined pathway along our big window was an interesting structure, which sparked my head with the concept of Banziha; ‘ban’ meaning half and ‘ziha’ meaning below the ground level,” he says. Anyone who’s seen the Oscar-winning 2019 film Parasite will be familiar with the type of basement apartments (also known as banjiha) occupied by thousands of low-income people in South Korea – “where they [can] only see the feet of people walking along the street from their windows.”

On the expanded dinner menu, find signatures such as pork belly cooked on charcoal (samgyeopsal) with stir-fried kimchi, and “volcanic Korean chicken” (also known as cheese buldak) for fans of a cheese-pull opportunity.

Other sharing plates include butter-glazed tofu, sweet and spicy cauliflower and spicy pork back ribs (mae-un-deung-galbi-jjim) – often there’s an option to add the Korean rice cake, tteok-bokki.

Wine-wise, Banziha currently serves Still Life wine and Continental Platter prosecco – all on tap. There's also hazy pale ale on tap and Cass beer by the bottle.

“From the very first day we opened, our main drink was soju,” says Kim. While the team started with three flavours, you can now order from a selection of nine soju cocktails that arrive in a jug to be poured into small glasses between bites. Choose between strawberry, peach or grape (those are mixed as slushies) – and there’s even a coffee soju. It’s been a labour of love, says Kim. “We have come up with the golden recipe ourselves after countless trials.”

Banziha
4 Williamson Avenue, Grey Lynn,
Auckland 1021

Hours
Daytime: Mon to Fri 7:30am-3pm
Evening: Tues to Thurs 5:30pm-10pm
Fri & Sat 5:30pm-11pm

@banziha_nz