Jesse Mulligan Reviews Korean BBQ 1946 Butchery, Bringing The Sizzle To Wairau Valley
Take your pick of 20 meats, 10 starters, 30 mains, 10 hotpots and a ‘special menu’.
This restaurant is a total delight - a meaty oasis among the big box stores of Wairau Park. Much like its neighbours, everything about 1946 Butchery is big … big room, big kitchen, big cuts of meat. And yet there was no room for me inside when I showed up one Friday night for dinner - I was shown to a table in the slightly less buzzy but still very pleasant semi-outdoor area, where the DIY BBQ is as useful to warm you up as it is to grill your beef.
I therefore didn’t get an opportunity to try out the restaurant’s pride and joy: ventilation chimneys that hover over each indoor table, sucking the smoke up and out of the dining room before spewing it into the chilly night air. If you’ve ever asked Auckland Council to sign off a pool fence, you can probably imagine how difficult it is to help them get their heads around a state-of-the-art BBQ ventilation system, and it sounds like installation was the easy part compared to explaining to the inspector why it was safe.
“Much easier in Seoul,” the owner told me. “Much less regulation.”
I’ll leave it to others to decide whether our authorities strike the right balance between safety and common sense, but next time I’m talking to Shane Jones, I might suggest we look at fast-tracking Korean BBQ joints with the same urgency as we do coal mines.
He’s a nice chatty character, this owner, and all the staff were kind too - one of them taking pity on me as I fumbled around with the grill plate.
“Look,” he said. “We’re not that busy - I’ll do it for you this time.”
I’m glad he did because a lot of this stuff was not intuitive for me. The boss man reckons 80% of his customers aren’t Korean but everybody seems to know what they’re doing, making it even more intimidating when you’re asked to choose between 20 types of meat, 10 starters, 30 mains, 10 hotpots and a “special menu”.
Sticking with the core premise of the restaurant, I ordered pork and beef for the BBQ and, after some discussion with the kitchen about what I was entitled to as a solo diner, they brought out the works, including six sauces, an equal number of side dishes, some complimentary sushi rice, and a plate of daikon slices for wrapping things up.
Then of course there was the raw meat - a huge hunk of pork belly and marinated beef rib, tucked into a bowl with pumpkin, mushroom, tomato and sweetcorn. You could eat one hundred mouthfuls of this meal and make each one different to the last.
I complained a couple of weeks ago at Wagyu Shogun that there wasn’t enough fat to properly grease the grill but that’s not a problem here: you are given a little knob of the stuff to apply whenever things start to dry out. My guy demonstrated that there is quite a difference in heat between the centre of the BBQ (scorching) and the perimeter (balmy), where you can safely put your meat to rest once it’s done to your liking. The other main thing you’ll need to get your head around is the metal snips, which are used to turn the giant hunk of meat into yummy bite-size bits.
The condiments are too complicated and numerous to list but highlights included a spring onion kimchi and a lovely little glass noodle-mayo situation, which was good enough to eat on its own. Then there were lots of lightly pickled this and that, and refillable sauces - the spicy mayonnaise was great, but actually, one of my favourite moments was taking a piece of golden-crunchy pork belly and simply sprinkling it with salt to bring out its natural piggy flavour.
Some of the best elements of the Butchery you only find out by chance. Those daikon slices aren’t big enough to wrap up a decent-sized package and it was only that I happened to inquire about using lettuce leaves instead that the waiter revealed their existence, delivering them shortly afterwards with raw garlic slices.
He gave me the lettuce for free, as the economics of being a solo diner don’t really work for some of the bigger banquet options. It was even a bit of a palaver working out if I was eligible for all the banchan side dishes given that I was by myself, and it would have been a shame to miss those. Not every restaurant works for a table for one, but this one really would if they perhaps thought just a little harder about how to do it well.
Of course, it’ll be even better with you and three friends, sharing the costs, passing around the pickles and yabbering away while one of you takes charge of the cooking. It’s a great addition to an unexpected part of town, and possibly the only street block in the city where you can have a Korean BBQ banquet and buy everything you need to build that new retaining wall.
1946 Butchery
Cuisine: Korean BBQ
Address: 231 Archers Rd, Wairau Valley
Contact: 0210 809 9641, 1946butchery.co.nz, @1946butchery_akl
Drinks: Fully licensed
Reservations: Accepted
Opening hours: From 11.30am, 7 days
From the menu: Pork Belly $31, marinated golbi beef $39, spring onion pancake $31
Rating: 17/20
Score: 0-7 Steer clear. 8-12 Disappointing, give it a miss. 13-15 Good, give it a go. 16-18 Great, plan a visit. 19-20 Outstanding, don’t delay.
More restaurant reviews
According to dining-out editor Jesse Mulligan.
‘The best meal I’ve eaten this year’: Jesse Mulligan finds his own way in Remuera. Locals love this modern Italian restaurant, and Jesse did too.
‘Italian for people who have no interest in Italy’: Jesse Mulligan reluctantly reviews a new K’Rd restaurant. The food tastes good but it’s ‘the wrong restaurant in the right place at the wrong time’.
This hot new restaurant is perfect apart from two problems ... and only one is fixable. But the good stuff far outweighs these minor complaints.
The new Ponsonby Rd has arrived on Auckland’s North Shore. ‘We tried to have a soft launch but ... it didn’t really work,’ says chef Alfie Ingham.
I was told this Japanese spot is tiny and brilliant. One of those things is true. This Devonport spot seats about 30 and is an easy ferry ride from the city.