After going in with high hopes, the new Japanese restaurant at five-star hotel JW Marriott Auckland leaves Jesse wanting more.
This fancy new hotel restaurant was both hard to find and hard to love. My Uber driver insisted on dropping me around the back at the JW Marriott’s service entrance,
so I had to circle the hotel block to get to the front doors. In the lobby, I followed a small sign for Kureta to a narrow corridor containing two or three bathroom doors and what looked like a dead end. Three young people were standing there poking at a plastic panel in the hope it would buzz for help, but on a hunch I pulled at the wall and discovered to the delight of everyone that it was in fact the restaurant’s front door.
Beyond that was a dining room, but first we had to navigate a service bottleneck – Kureta does two sittings a night and, with this single entry/exit point, it’s chaotic at 8pm when the two cross over. It’s elected to put its point of sale here too, which further compounds the congestion.
Kureta at JW Marriott Auckland seats 30 people at a time, with two dinner services per night. Photo / Babiche Martens
Nonetheless, we sat down with high hopes. Diners sit shoulder to shoulder around two large cooking stations, and though this isn’t the party-time teppanyaki experience you may have sat through at a work bonding dinner, there is a sort of happy camaraderie in sharing a front row with strangers (when someone holds up the show by arriving late you all get to scowl at them together). The room is stylishly decorated and windowless, so you could easily be in subterranean Tokyo. Our chef looked suitably devout, and I recognised the excellent sommelier from a good night at Wakuwaku. We were exceptionally excited.
But unfortunately the following couple of hours brought very few moments of joy, and many disappointments. This was despite my being recognised as a reviewer immediately and, presumably, being given the best possible experience. When I first heard about Kureta I was desperate to visit; by the end of the night I was desperate to leave.
The menu is degustation only, with a few price tiers depending on what style of wagyu you want – New Zealand, Australian or Japanese. I am not a Kobe fetishist so was happy to pay $120 for the local animal, but it’s good to have the ultra-marbled original available to those who want it.
The watermelon gazpacho on the menu at Japanese restaurant Kureta. Photo / Babiche Martens
Wine matching was offered at $100, which seemed on the high side, and this was confirmed when they started pouring. This is, I’m sorry, the meanest wine match in Auckland. We were thirsty for the entire night and twice ordered beers just so we would have something to drink. They poured just a few mouthfuls at a time, and if you looked at the quantity rationed out over the entire meal I’d be shocked if it added up to two full glasses. Buy a bottle and save some money.
“Usually the meal is 10 courses, but tonight … eleven courses!” announced chef Akihiro Nakamura, and we all applauded politely. This sadly turned out to be one of the very few moments of interaction with the great chef all evening. His reputation is wonderful and his talent obvious, but there are still far too many things going wrong here.
So, no banter. Nor was there any music. The vibes were sepulchral.
That bonus course he mentioned was served first, and was a small wagyu stew – a confusingly heavy way to begin a Japanese tasting menu. From there, we enjoyed the house special – dry-aged seafood – in a number of pleasant ways. My favourite was probably kombu-cured kingfish and scallop – the seaweed blanket coaxing some subtly complex new flavours out of each after several hours of interaction.
We all got a taste of some top-shelf A5 wagyu in one course, which combined a sliver of exceptionally fatty beef with salmon roe and kina. “Eat it all at once”, we were advised, and it was one intensely queer mouthful. You may like it; it left me a bit cold. They served that dish with a sauvignon blanc, which was an interesting, if not life-changing, combination.
The kombu scallop and kingfish on the menu at Japanese restaurant Kureta restaurant. Photo / Babiche Martens
There are some nice culinary moments – sashimi porae served without soy sauce because the dry-ageing is seasoning enough; a watermelon gazpacho with punchy pink peppercorns, nori dust and a couple of plump prawns bobbing in the cold summer soup; a yuzu granita was packed with huge citrus flavour, the oils from the rind particularly prominent.
But the main meat course left me completely depressed. The steaks seemed to take forever to chop up and cook, then sat for a huge amount of time while he repeated the process – without guidance from the wait staff it was really unclear what was happening. Eventually, some of it was plated up and handed over to eat. As you’d expect from sliced wagyu cooked 15 minutes ago in an air-conditioned room, it was cold. The mountains of leftover beef – raw and cooked – sat in piles for us to stare at as we ate.
Kureta. Photo / Babiche Martens
“Do you want any more meat?” the chef asked half-heartedly, some time after we’d finished eating. We didn’t.
No attempt was made to clear the meat away as they served dessert – a decent square of matcha cheesecake alongside a half glass of bubbles that was about the same temperature as the steak. Service had disappeared by then, so, unsure what to do, after a few minutes we shrugged, paid our bill and wandered out into the hotel lobby where we sat down and tried to work out what just happened.
Address: JW Marriot, 22/26 Albert St, Auckland Central
From the menu: “Signature” tasting menu, $120pp
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.
According to dining out editor Jesse Mulligan.