Jesse Mulligan Reviews Royal Oak’s Wagyu Shogun, A Tiny Grill From Cocoro’s Owner
This one-man wagyu bar could be Royal Oak’s next cult restaurant.
Cocoro in Ponsonby is one of the great dining experiences in New Zealand, so when the owner tells you he’s launched a new restaurant, you make plans to go that very night. Then he tells you it’s in Royal Oak and you think, well, maybe it’s not that urgent.
I mean no disrespect to Royal Oak, which (I’m sure you know this) is indirectly named after the tree Charles II hid in to avoid capture at the Battle of Worcester. I was about to tell you nothing that exciting has happened in the Auckland suburb named after the tree, but then I remembered the great lion escape of 1916, when a hungry cub busted out of the Royal Oak zoo and terrorised the locals, no doubt causing a fair bit of tree climbing itself. A few years later the zoo closed down and the owner sold 11 lions, 6 bears and 2 wolves to the council for the new site at Western Springs. This would have been some relief to Royal Oak’s local stray dogs who, it was said, used to be rounded up and fed to the wild animals when the owner was running short of cash. All of this is true.
Anyway, the only reason I hesitated a little when I discovered the location of Makoto Takuyama’s new Wagyu Shogun, is that it was quite difficult to imagine what and where it would be. Royal Oak has no significant strip of restaurants as there is in Ponsonby or even Onehunga. Would I need to wear a blazer?
As it turns out, Wagyu Shogun is in about the smallest, lowest profile spot you can imagine - opposite the Pak n Save, next to a Thai massage therapist. At Cocoro you feel like you’ve wandered through the wardrobe into Narnia; this place feels more like you’ve stayed in the wardrobe.
It is so small that the entire operation is run by one man. This is achieved by having a computer screen where the front desk would be, allowing you to key in your order. You then sit down in front of a barbecue oven, put your receipt on a small rubber mat that says “RECEIPT HERE” and shortly afterwards the guy in the kitchen brings over your order.
The system works very well and all the customers seemed happy (though faced with only soft drinks on the menu, one of them did ask gingerly if BYO wine was a possibility: no). The vibe is casual as – no blazer required – which is perhaps unexpected given that the whole experience is built around one of the world’s most premium ingredients: A5 Wagyu beef.
In fact, that is the guiding principle behind the restaurant: to democratise one of Japan’s most luxurious taste experiences, so that any muggins with fifty bucks can enjoy it. I strongly approve, and once I’d got my head around the idea that this was Not Your Typical Restaurant, I loved every minute.
It is exceptionally fun to be in charge of your own cooking. Everybody gets virtually the same set platter (you can save $10 and order a lower grade of beef if you want to) and once the gas barbie in front of you has been sparked up, it’s up to you to cook and eat the ingredients in the order of your choosing. Above you is a collection of TV screens which give you advice on how best to grill your beef (an expensive item to stuff up), but you have a lot of freedom in how you decide to approach everything else.
Before me, I had a bowl of miso and a bowl of rice (both refillable if you fancy it) alongside wagyu gravy, house barbecue sauce, some spicy condiments, 125g (four slices) of raw beef and a selection of vegetables for the grill. Their advice is to cook the meat first then sizzle the vegetables in the residual fat, though in practice the fat disappears or burns onto the steel fairly quickly, leaving you to cook a broccoli floret purely with the dry heat of the gas flame beneath. Still, it tastes pretty good once you’ve smooshed it round in the house sauce, and the beef is exquizz - so fat-marbled and indulgent that after three good slices you don’t necessarily need any more.
You can eat each cooked slice a little differently – with a citrusy red Yuzu chilli or a nose-clearing green wasabi. You can dip it in the barbecue sauce or order some optional ponzu for something a little lighter on the taste buds. Meanwhile, desperately calling for your attention is the house gravy, a completely delicious Japanese-style curry, made, I think, from beefy bits and pieces that didn’t qualify for the main event. I was once told that it doesn’t matter if everything else is cold, gravy needs to be hot. So it’s very difficult following Wagyu Shogun’s instructions to leave eating it until the end, particularly as I’d inadvertently ordered an extra bowl of the stuff.
It’s funny to have eaten slices of the world’s most famous beef, and mainly still be thinking about the gravy. But I guess the latter only works because of the delicate luxury of the former. Thanks to chef Makoto and his partner Daizo Yamada, another Auckland food legend, you no longer need to spend hundreds of dollars to indulge in both.
Wagyu Shogun
Cuisine: Japanese
Address: 726 Manukau Rd, Royal Oak
Contact: (09) 650 5050, wagyushogun.com, @wagyushogun
Drinks: unlicensed
Reservations: Accepted
Opening hours: 12-3pm, 5.30-9pm, seven days
From the menu: A5 Kagoshima Kuroge Wagyu Set $49.80, extra curry $9.50, extra veg $9.50, ponzu sauce $2
Rating: 16/20
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.
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