10 Sep 2018

Ika Bowl: the Pasifika poké joint

From Nine To Noon, 11:30 am on 10 September 2018

The owners of Ika Bowl in Auckland are looking at taking their traditional South Pacific take on the poké trend - a Hawaiian raw fish salad - overseas. 

Ika Bowl's Katchaflame bowl has tuna, cucumber, spring onion and Fijian chilli.

Ika Bowl's Katchaflame bowl has tuna, cucumber, spring onion and Fijian chilli. Photo: Supplied

Owners Ra Beazley, Navi Singh and Hutu Harris first met at Alfriston College in South Auckland. 

Ra and Navi tell Nine to Noon's Kathryn Ryan they got the idea for Ika Bowl while taking business papers at university.

"We didn't want to study for the sake of studying, so this gave us that drive of 'you have to get up, you have to go to work'," Ra says.

The eatery, which opened six months ago in Auckland’s Snickel Lane, specialises in sashimi-grade raw fish salad. 

The trio were all born and raised in Auckland, but have a wider Polynesian heritage and culture to draw from. Ra says there are many traditional raw fish dishes from the South Pacific to get inspiration from.

"I guess it starts off with the migration of the Polynesian people ... [who] travelled through each island and some stayed and some kept going.

"The poké trend, it started in Hawaii, and then America came through and started promoting that and that's where it became a global trend.

"The way that we wanted to approach it was more from taking the whole South Pacific and taking things from the Fijian kokoda or the Māori and Cook Island ika mata, and bringing all these things through and saying 'okay, we've got this dish but we need to broaden out to all the available seafood and available veggies that we have today'."

Hutu Harris, Navi Singh and Ra Beazley.

Hutu Harris, Navi Singh and Ra Beazley. Photo: Supplied

The idea for Ika Bowl partly came from overseas travels, Navi says.

"I travelled all over Europe ... the food and culture there is a very big thing, you know, seeing all the different kind of dishes, trying the dishes, it really just opened me up to the world of hospitality and it was the start for us to kind of create something bigger than ourselves.

"Generally food and fish for our culture in general – Pacific and Māori – is a huge thing and we researched into it more and saw that the trend of poke was kind of emerging.

"We've been eating this our whole lives, so it was almost … natural for us to draw through our cultural heritage and put something together."

It's surprising how little Polynesian food is on offer in New Zealand, Ra says.

"I think the main thing is seeing that in other countries they display their culture quite thoroughly – like, everything is about their own culture from their own place – whereas here we saw there's a lack of Māori or Polynesian representation within the food industry.

"So we thought, 'why don't we jump in and we be that key or that starter to bring through our food?' … because tourists will come over and be like 'I want to try something local' but … don't really know what that is."

Ika Bowl is based on a fast-paced takeaway model like Subway, he says.

"We give you your selection of fish – could be salmon, tuna, sometimes we do market fish so at the moment we're doing prawns but we could bring through kingfish, anything like that.

"You also pick a base. So what we like to do is still coming off that poké trend which is normally just white rice, we decided to go with white rice, brown rice, we've got some greens in there … or you can have a vermicelli noodle.

"We want people to be able to choose what they consume … sometimes there's a lot of sugar and stuff like that or there's sesame that some people are allergic to in the marinade … we let you put the sauces in later so you can choose to have what you want."

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Photo: Supplied

Navi says it's a good fit for the corporate market.

"They really just want something fresh, healthy, delicious and also fast, so we're very efficient when it comes to speed and convenience.

"A lot of people just come in, take their lunch and either head back to work or take a seat out in the lane."

None of the guys trained in hospitality and they've had to learn as they go.

Navi says it took them a while to get set up.

"Altogether I would say it took us about eight months, we had plenty of help along the way, without a great support system behind us I don't think we would be where we are now."

But, as Ra explains, the business is now taking off, and they're looking to expand.

"At the moment we've decided to open up a second store down on the waterfront – there's another new precinct going ahead so we'll be part of that one – and we're kind of getting ready for the America's Cup as everyone else is.

"And then, hopefully going overseas sometime soon ... maybe looking at Japan next year for Rugby World Cup. It would be a smart decision as they've got Olympics the following year, as well."

"New Zealand fish is one of the best fish out there … in a way one of the strongest population of fish, and there’s a lot of fish out there that Kiwis don’t eat that a lot of the rest of the world would surely eat, so there’s something there, as well."