Robert Oliver

The recently opened Kai Pasifika restaurant is the first Pacific cuisine restaurant to be established in New Zealand. While it aims to celebrate traditional Pacific foods, it also wants to change existing misconceptions about them.

The restaurant is a dream come true for celebrity chef Robert Oliver who has won top awards at the Gourmand World Cookbook awards for his material on Pacific cuisine.

Mr Oliver said he has had to challenge perceptions around Pacific foods being inferior.

"Pacific people know better and I know better," he said

The project - led by award-winning chef Robert Oliver - will see the first fine-dining Pacific cuisine restaurant established in Auckland.

The Kai Pasifika Restaurant will aim to help boost trade from Pacific Island producers by showcasing products from around the region.

"Here we are with the biggest Polynesian capital in the world and we don't have any sort of a restaurant, like a Pacific cuisine restaurant here in Auckland." said the project's chief financial officer, Kenina Court.