. After earning a hospitality degree in Auckland, running a café, and working in the United States and United Arab Emirates for airlines and in fashion, she returned to Seoul around 2014.
“I always missed my home country,” she says. “I was thinking I wanted to go back and to explore Korean culture – I was a teenager when I left Korea.”
While importing fashion labels from Italy, France and NZ’s Andrea Moore, she found Seoul’s scene a bit monotone and business‑orientated.
“The lifestyle was different. So I was like, ‘okay, this is not it’.
“Then I met my husband [in 2016]. So I said, I’m interested in food and beverage
“Coffee was pretty not good. They didn’t have the flat white in Korea back then … I wanted to sell proper coffee. So we opened up a coffee cafeteria.”
Inspired by the “food heaven” she remembered in her second home, New Zealand, a pie was always on the menu.
“I had this strong memory of this tuck shop back in my college days … eating hot pies, burning the roof of my mouth,” she told Afternoons
As customers began pairing the pie with drinks, she considered specialising. Her husband “never trusted the pie” though, so she took him to New Zealand — where he fell in love with the hospitality, bakeries and coffee.
“We wanted to create this kind of atmosphere back in Korea,” Kim says.
But that meant teaching staff, who had never been to New Zealand, the kind of hospitality she wanted.
“I could train [staff], like educate them, ‘New Zealand culture is very warm, friendly. You have to be very professional at the same time, but you treat the people as you like to be treated, and you treat them like your family’.”
Transforming into a pie specialty shop was no easy feat either. After knocking on bakers’ doors, she secured a three‑day crash course in New Zealand.
Korea’s humidity made pastry difficult. “So I was failing every day. I was practising every day. I was like swearing, crying,” she laughs. “But I got it right in the end.”
Kristine Kim with Kathryn and John Loughlin, who own Askerne Estate Winery near Havelock North.
Supplied / Auckland Pie Garage
Six months later, the pies were ready.
“New Zealand is like specialised in pies, so they have all the equipment available.
“But in Korea, it was pretty hard to find hot ovens for the pie, the warmers for the pie, and stuff like that. So I managed to import them all.”
Though she hopes to try making a gochujang‑based chicken pie, she mostly sticks to classic dishes: mince and cheese, steak and cheese, chicken and leek pies; sausage rolls, fish and chips, and mussel pot.
Auckland Pie Garage has a bunch of Kiwi classics on their menu.
Supplied / Auckland Pie Garage
Just like the finger heart embracing the fern, Kim hopes Koreans love the New Zealand ambience and flavours at her shop.
“I just have to educate people, this is taste of New Zealand. I can’t change it to fit Korean people’s taste.”
The shop also stocks New Zealand wines and beverages, and Kim hopes a department‑store pop‑up in May will introduce more locals to Kiwi flavours.