Bistro Saine, a new restaurant offering familiar, French-inspired bistro fare, opens this week on Albert Street in the city’s CBD.
The restaurant is located within new boutique Hotel Indigo, so offers long hours and varied dining options, but has an elegant presence that won’t make you feel like you’re on a business trip.
Instead, the European vibe is drawn from the style and buzz of bistros in New York, London, and Paris. Established in a beautifully-restored heritage building that once housed Dexter and Crozier’s The Motor House (NZ’s first Cadillac importer), the interiors highlight original windows, a marble-topped bar, cosy dim lighting, warm, dark wood and banquette seating.
The traditional, Euro-chic food, spearheaded by top chef Executive Chef Yutak Son blends French techniques with Mediterranean influence and the chef’s own personal flair. The dishes, are delicious and made for easy socialising, with buttery pastas, indulgent potato dishes, and classic steak frites, balanced by shared snacks, seafood, and salads.
With experience at Orphans Kitchen, Sidart, Black Estate, Te Motu, and Daily Bread, Korean-born, French-trained Chef Yutak is particularly driven by spotlighting the finest local and seasonal produce.
“Great produce should be respected, celebrated, and transformed into dishes that feel both timeless and familiar,” says Chef Yutak.
“At Bistro Saine we honour tradition and technique of French cooking, but there’s always a subtle twist—something personal from my background. We want to take people on a food journey that is fresh, seasonal, and accessible – not fine dining but classic dishes at their best.”
For example, whole pigs from Northland, are butchered in-house and cured into saucisson sec, while Farmgate pork croquettes are reimagined with subtleties of wakame ketchup, for an unexpected burst of flavour.
Chef Yutak leads a team with varied and respected backgrounds in the New Zealand hospitality scene, as well as further afield.
The new restaurant is part of a redevelopment and revival of the midtown area near where recently-closed iconic fine dining restaurant The Grove was located. The restaurant joins three new venues opening at 51 Albert Street, including café and wine bar Café Etiquette and The Henry, a sophisticated cocktail lounge.
- Bistro Saine opens for service from Friday, April 4.
