Tanuki’s Cave

One of NZ’s best casual Japanese restaurant aka sake bar. Their rolls are really good, salmon and avo being my fav. Good choice of Japanese pub food. Staff are very accommodating and service is good even when the place get real busy on theatre nights. Reservations are recommended but I usually like to sit at the bar upstairs. Good choice of sake and beverages as well. Price is fair for the portions which is a plus point.

Fabulous little find tucked away next to the Town Hall. We came before Pop Up Globe, and were lucky enough to get seats at the bar. It was quite amazing watching the chefs create stunning food right infront of us — especially dishes using the blowtorch! We shared several dishes between 3 and all were outstanding. For example, deep fried tofu, Karage chicken (my favorite! So tender and juicy), japanese steak (yummmm), pork belly, soft shell crab & broccoli with a super tasty almost nutty sauce. The jelly sake in berry or peach is also worth a try. Hopefully will come back to try another dish selection soon!

The Cave!!! What I wouldn’t give to go back in time and eat it all again. Very cool vibe, excellent quality of food — try the spider roll. This place has been a go to for a while now and always consistently delivers. Would highly recommend coming here. Get some sake and soak up the atmosphere.

I left the restaurant in a very good mood and satisfied with the experience, but at the door I realized why I didn’t find sushi on the menu. I visited the cave instead of the ‘brother’ sushi bar on the ground floor. Dinner for two: 7 small plates, sort-​of-​Spanish tapas, very well prepared, originals and balanced. Tuna sashimi (the closest to my craving), grilled rice cakes, mushrooms stuffed with minced chicken, chicken balls, and the best of all: a deep fried sweet potato ball coated with crunchy sliced almonds. A very cool place, ideal for dates.

Great location, just up from Aotea Square. There’s a choice of upstairs or downstairs, the latter looking like the best option. Seating’s a bit uncomfortable upstairs and the food choices not that exciting. Some of the food we ordered was a bit of a surprise, spring rolls were actually fresh and what we thought were crispy spring rolls were in fact cheese sticks. Watching sumo wrestling on the tv was probably the highlight.

A Japanese and Korean restaurant near civic square, this place is usually packed to the rafters with hungry punters before and after theatre shows. The food is tasty but nothing out of the ordinary. The service is friendly but a bit haphazard at times.

Eat before you come here otherwise you’ll leave hungry!
Nice atmosphere but food is a complete rip off.
$ 7 — $ 8 for microscopic servings.
Its just for snacks, not a proper meal.
Come for drinks only.

Food isn’t as good as the locals would try and convince you it is. But the location and atmosphere are cool. For about $ 150 my girlfriend and I tried about 75% of the different meats with a couple beers a piece so the value is good.

My favourite place in Auckland. I get emotional and anxious when too long passes between visits. AND I get the same thing every single time
Cabbage and Mayo — it’s literally just a plate of raw cabbage with a slap of mayo on it. I could easily make this at home but never do. Why? Cos Tanuki can
Edamame beans — everyone knows but they do them warm and salty and buttery and better
Yakitori Steak which is amazing rare steak grilled in butter on a stick
Kushiage Chicken & Cheese which is a ball of chicken breast with hot cheese in the middle and crumbed in crunchy perfection
Also, this sounds weird but if you like coke — order a coke. For some reason it tastes better here than anywhere else in the world. My friends and I try to find out the secret but alas, you just have to go to Tanuki’s Cave to understand

This used to be one of Auckland’s best little hidden secrets. Now it’s so popular it can be near impossible to get a table and for good reason too! I would recommend this place if you’ve never been as it’s a total experience. Although a lot of the look and name of this place would lead you to think it’s Japanese it’s actually a fusion of a few cultures/​foods. They mix Korean and Japanese dishes mainly. It’s quite an interesting little place as it’s located right at the bottom of some stairs off queen street. You’ve probably walked past this place a thousand times as it’s just that easy to miss. Food and drinks can be a little expensive but not that much different to any where else in Auckland for that matter. Great easy going staff and relaxed environment. A total must for Auckland dining.

I went here with high expectation so I think it kind of ruined it for me because this place is okaaaaaaay. Very oily and salty but that’s what grilled skewers are like. Also you have the option of cooking with sauce or salt, just tell them beforehand. We fully forgot haha so our fault
Lol I’m Asian so we ordered really «weird» things like chicken giblets, beef tongue, chicken skin etc. was yum just oily. Beef sirloin was soooo tender. Pork belly was super juicy.
I read the recommendations to order mashed kumara balls with almond chips coating. And it smelt like fried chicken hahaha which I found hilarious. Taste is bland in the middle. Can definitely taste the almonds. I personally wouldn’t order it again.
Grilled rice ball was really tough and a little burnt and also not much flavour. Good thing we still had some kewpie sauce (aka yum yum sauce/​mayo hahaha) because that stuff makes everything delicious.
Quail eggs were good! The yolk was still creamy AND it was wrapped in bacon AND slathered in kewpie sauce. Salty but nice.
I don’t know… I don’t think I would come back here? One time for me is enough haha

A night at the Ballet provided the perfect opportunity to finally try this Auckland institution.
As far as pre-​theatre options go, Tanuki’s is a good option. The location is ideal, the food comes out quickly (for the most part) and best of all, when you arrive they ask what time you need to leave.
The food at Tanuki’s cave is Yakitori style (skewers) — ideal for sharing. In general each order has two skewers but make sure you specify exactly how many skewers you want. I went with a party of four and asked for two orders of everything but they thought we meant two skewers, one order (silly really, since there were four of us!). What was even more frustrating was that when we realised the mistake and tried to fix it they said it would take another 25mins and we wouldn’t have time. Lesson learned for next time!
Easily our favourite dish of the evening was their fried tofu special — big pieces of tofu lightly battered and fried served in a delicious sauce with fried onions. The cabbage with Japanese mayo and lemon juice is also a goodie — simple but delicious and the servings was huge.
Next time we’d definitely skip the prawns, which come in their shells (admin) and were criminally overcooked, and the edamame beans, which just don’t justify their $ 8.90 price tag.
Tanuki’s has a fun atmosphere, is good for groups (you can book if you party is bigger than 6pax) and reasonably inexpensive. I’ll be back…

We love Tanuki’s Cave. It has a welcoming intimacy being in a compact basement area, and when it’s really busy in the evenings, testament to its popularity is the queue on the stairs reaching up to Queen Street. The layout of the restaurant doesn’t lend itself to large groups. It is intimate because it is small. We have taken our kids there with no problem although this is not strictly a family-​friendly sort of place. If children are civilised and can sit still they’ll be fine!
The food is Yakitori-​style with a good selection of the usual fare and we have never struck any bad food here, it is well cooked and flavoursome. The service is efficient, albeit that it can be slow when the place is packed. Some of the serving staff can be a bit surly at times but I can forgive that — if I was working there amid the throng of sweaty bods on a busy night I’d probably forget to smile occasionally too.
If you’re in the city and wanting a tasty bite this place is worth a visit — go early to ensure a seat without having to queue on the stairway.

Not bad. The food was good but better Japanese around. The atmosphere was good but found the service a bit pushy. Not the typical Japanese sophistication. Slightly expensive but the beer in happy hour was a good price. There were no Japanese customers here but this place is more a Japanese theme joint while on the way to a show.

Great place. One of my favourite restaurants in Auckland. The real deal. Not pretentious. Good value.

Situated at the upper middle of Queen Street’s buzz centre, Tanuki’s cave is easily the best Japanese joint in Auckland. If it didn’t cause me to weep at the sight of my bank account, I’d be at Tanuki’s Cave weekly. But to be fair, that’s only because I’d get too excited and order every. single. thing.
Not to be confused with Tanuki’s (the ground level establishment), Tanuki’s Cave is like the cooler and more moody younger sibling of the two, and Cave doesn’t take bookings except for large parties. I made this mistake, thinking I had booked for two at Cave. This turned out to be a table right by the door at Tanuki, which we politely declined. The wait for Tanuki’s Cave wasn’t too long though, and this was at 7pm on a Friday. They even have standing tables, where you can wait for an open spot and order drinks in the meantime. Much appreciated.
The ups: Yakitori dining (think Japanese tapas/​small plates), a diverse but succinct menu, relatively cheap, awesome décor, and those massive cans of Asahi beer.
The downs: No bookings, and claustrophobes may not enjoy the cozy underground setting.
I can’t remember the specifics of what we ordered, but everything was fantastic. I’ll be back, hopefully many times.

For starters, it’s bloody underground. How cool is that? And when I say underground, it actually isn’t under the ground but you have to travel down a decent staircase to get to it. That is unless you’re coming in through the ‘I’m a regular and I’m cool so I can do this’ back entrance which would require you walking up some rickety outside stairs and through the Tanuki’s Cave kitchen.
It’s yakitori. Translation: Japanese and things on sticks. It is very good. You’ll be able to tell by the gazillion people waiting for a table that you can’t book for (unless you’ve got a party of 6 or more). I order the same things pretty much every time give or take a few dishes: the scotch fillet steak with butter and soy sauce. Incredible, and also comes in donburi form which is cheap and filling and very, very buttery. The shrimp and bacon with mayonnaise. The tofu salad (without tomato or onion pleeeeaaase). A miso soup (best I’ve ever had, for real). A green tea. My ex (do I talk about my exes a lot?) loves the mashed kumara balls with almond chips.
Just talking about this place makes me so happy. I want to put a happy face emoticon here but I will refrain.
FYI: Parking behind the building is $ 6 all night after 6:00pm.

Tanuki’s Cave reminds me of the kind of place that a tough as nails Tokyo cop would go to make some godless salaryman squeal in some ‘Beat’ Takeshi Kitano movie. It’s just that great.
You basically have any food you could possibly desire and you get it on a stick. I’m big into the tofu and the cheese. Isn’t that the best thing ever? You just get your food fried up and jacked onto a stick for east of consumption. Throw in some really nice Japanese beer and this strange, almost unsettlingly good, atmosphere and Tanuki’s Cave becomes a guaranteed good time. Especially if you’re a Nipponiphile like I am.

Tanuki’s Cave is my hands-​down favourite Japanese restaurant. Whilst living overseas, it was one of the few establishments in Auckland that I couldn’t wait to revisit upon my return to the motherland.
You can’t book, but even if there is a queue it tends to move pretty quickly.
The style is yakitori so think small platters of skewered meats and vegetables, either grilled or deep fried. The kumara balls coated in almond slices are one of my faves, along with the vienna sausage and the scotch fillet steak kushiage. DELICIOUS.

Just next door to Tanuki Sushi and and Sake Bar, Tanuki’s Cave is the perfect hideaway bar to head to after dinner at Tanuki’s, or whenever you want a bar with a intimate, warm atmosphere.
A tanuki is actually a super-​cute kind of raccoon dog from Japan (look out for the statues around the bar), and it also appears widely in Japanese mythology. In fact you could just about picture something a little supernatural happening down in this Cave, especially after tasting some of the excellent range of sake…
Not to be missed, the Japanese yakitori-​style bar snacks (mostly little things on skewers) are mid-​range in price and high-​end in deliciousness. Tanuki’s Cave is a wonderful place to burrow down and escape reality for a night.