Ooh-Fa is a narrow pizza and wine bar at 357 Dominion Road in Mount Eden, Auckland, opened in 2022 by the founders of Pici, the pasta restaurant in St Kevin’s Arcade off Karangahape Road. The room is compact, with around two dozen seats, bare concrete walls and floors, upcycled timber tables and a curved tiled bar, and its glowing heart is the big woodfire oven at the back. The owners pitched it as an intimate neighbourhood spot rather than a formal restaurant, and every pizza is meant to be eaten in the room, straight from the oven. Tucked away behind the main room is a private dining space for five to eight guests, who share a set menu chosen by the kitchen.
Flames and fermentation drive the cooking. The dough is a sourdough given roughly three days to ferment before it meets the oven, where each pizza cooks in little more than a minute, and toppings are Italian in spirit without being bound by tradition. The spring menu might include a simple tomato, garlic and oregano base that can be crowned with stracciatella, butternut with goats cheese and soft herbs, oyster mushroom with pecorino and parsley butter, and lardo with parmesan, honey and black pepper. Heartier choices pair spicy Italian sausage with cavolo nero and buffalo mozzarella, or octopus with nduja and gremolata. Specials come and go, and have included tuatua with garlic, anchovy, chilli and pecorino.
Before the pizzas arrive, the snack list rewards a slower start. Woodfired carrots with whipped ricotta and pistachios have been a favourite since opening, and they sit alongside dill pickles with bagna cauda, Coromandel oysters with mignonette, gabagool, and a prawn cocktail dressed in Marie Rose with baby cos. A braised beef short rib with horseradish cream and pickled zucchini is the most substantial plate outside the pizza section. A rocket salad with parmesan and rosemary dressing or a plate of Ortiz anchovies rounds out the table, and dessert stays brief, perhaps black cherries with a Thomson whiskey sorbet or a sheep milk pannacotta finished with olive oil and sea salt.
Wine gets equal billing with pizza on the sign. The selection favours small growers from Aotearoa and Italy and moves through sparkling, rosé, chilled reds, whites, orange wines and fuller reds, with recent pours including a pét nat from the Wairarapa, Ashleigh Barrowman’s chilled red The Empress from Marlborough, Foradori’s orange Fuoripista from Alto Adige and Florence by Jenny Dobson from Hawke’s Bay. Anyone curious to go further can ask about the Waina Speciale selection, and the glass pours have featured guest producers such as Halite. For the private room, the team can cater for most dietary requirements when guests get in touch ahead of time.
Address: 357 Dominion Road, Mount Eden, Auckland 1024
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