It began, as it so often does, with a weekend job. For James Kenny, those teenage shifts hardened into a lifelong obsession with food and a career that would rank among the more travelled in New Zealand’s culinary scene. Raised in Papatoetoe, he trained in Paris before working his way through kitchens in Greece, London and Denmark, his London years including time with Gordon Ramsay at The Boxwood, an education that left him with an enduring passion for Anglo-European cuisine and an appetite for the industry’s particular intensity. It remains, in his estimation, a highly stimulating business, and when you get it right, an incredibly rewarding one.
Back home, his career gathered pace. He served as executive chef at Cornwall Park Bistro and helped establish Parnell’s Gerome, drawing on his time on the Greek island of Zakynthos, before decamping to Copenhagen in 2020 to study modern Scandinavian technique, interning at René Redzepi’s Noma and working the line at organic eatery The Pescatarian. Through all of it, his philosophy has never wavered: keep it simple, cook with care and finesse, and respect the ingredient.
The role that now occupies him arrived out of the blue. An architect he had worked with previously came calling, and the offer of carte blanche to reinvent the culinary offering at Grand Millennium Auckland proved too appealing to pass up. He now oversees four outlets on Mayoral Drive, with the bistro Ember as his flagship. Opened in March 2024 and designed by Izzard Design, the 144-seat room was built for the long lunch and the pre-theatre dinner alike, its warmth entirely in keeping with its name, and it sits alongside the adjoining Aviary cocktail bar, Katsura and the sensory dining room Dans le Noir, all in his charge.
Ember makes no claim to reinvention, and that is precisely the point. “We’re a no-fuss bistro with an emphasis on good food and great service. No more, no less,” Kenny says, in the manner of a chef who has watched enough kitchens overreach. What the room offers instead is repetition of a very high order. “Sometimes the hype can disappoint at other restaurants. We don’t cut corners, and the last dish to leave the kitchen will always resemble the first.” The menu moves with the seasons, each new arrival of produce an invitation for the team to get creative, but the discipline beneath it never shifts.
Longevity on a menu tells its own story. The lamb shoulder with tamari and labne has been on the menu since the doors opened and remains the most ordered dish in the house. “For one reason or another, it’s loved,” he says, with the faint bemusement of a chef who long ago stopped asking why. His own affections run smaller, settling on the gougères, delicate choux pastry with parmesan curd and Comté, which he pronounces simple and moreish and then, having said it, appears to consider the matter closed. Summer draws out something nearer to sentiment. “I have to make an Eton Mess. Raspberries and strawberries are draped in whipped vanilla cream and crushed meringue. It doesn’t get any better.”
Not every fashion earns his forgiveness. “Spherification. Too gimmicky for my liking. Balsamic pearls should stay gone.” Foams he is prepared to pardon, having watched them arrive everywhere at once and mostly badly, though he allows that one made with purpose can still earn its place on a plate.
For a chef with four kitchens to consider, the future arrives as a question of what machines cannot do. “As technology automates the routine tasks, genuine hospitality becomes the differentiator. Guests remember warm service, knowledgeable staff, personal attention, and a sense of community.” Then comes the observation that ought to reassure anyone who has ever booked a table. “Ironically, the more automated dining becomes, the more valuable authentic human interaction will feel.”
James’ Recommendations
