Cassia reopens in Auckland's Voco hotel building

Cassia has reopened at 58 Albert Street in Auckland's CBD, inside the Voco hotel building, three years after its original Fort Street premises flooded and closed. The contemporary Indian restaurant, run by chef Sid Sahrawat, spent the interim years in a temporary spot at SkyCity before finding what the team is calling its first true permanent home since 2023.

The new room seats up to 120 guests across two floors, with floor-to-ceiling windows and three private dining rooms for larger groups and corporate bookings. It is Cassia's third physical form, after the original Fort Street restaurant and the SkyCity stopgap, which is why the team has taken to calling this version “Cassia 3.0.”

Pani puri and lamb chops return

A restaurant survives a flood; keeping its name through three addresses is the harder trick.

The reopening menu keeps the dishes that built Cassia's following, including its pani puri and Mughlai lamb chops, alongside new additions the kitchen has been developing during the move. Cassia has held a Michelin Guide listing since the inspectors' first pass through New Zealand, and the SkyCity years did little to dent its standing in Auckland's dining scene.

Sahrawat has built Cassia's reputation on refined, produce-led readings of Indian regional cooking rather than the buffet-style format long associated with Indian restaurants in New Zealand, a positioning close to what Gymkhana in Dubai and other high-end Indian kitchens are attempting elsewhere.

A slow return after the flood

Three years is a long gap for any restaurant to keep its name alive without a permanent room, and Cassia's SkyCity spell was always framed internally as temporary. The Voco building gives the restaurant a lease and a location it controls directly, rather than space inside another operator's hotel or casino floor.

Cassia has not announced tasting menu pricing for the new site; walk-in dining and the private rooms are both open from launch. The team has kept the Cassia name and much of its front-of-house staff through all three moves, betting that loyalty to the brand outlasts any single address, the same wager behind dishes like the slow-cooked Indian classics now finding their way onto fine-dining menus abroad.

Auckland's Michelin inspectors, who awarded the country's first stars this year, have yet to confirm whether Cassia's new room will be reassessed under the same listing or reviewed afresh.