Pici is a small pasta and wine bar tucked inside St Kevin’s Arcade, almost exactly halfway along Karangahape Road in central Auckland. The arcade has stood since 1924, when two old houses were cleared for a row of shops running down towards Myers Park, and Pici has been one of its draws since the end of 2020. Its name comes from pici, a fat, hand rolled pasta that looks like an especially sturdy spaghetti and is made on site from little more than flour and water. Locally owned and owner operated, it describes its mood as electric yet intimate, with personal, informed service and food kept simple, untampered and plain tasty.
The idea grew out of the founders’ travels through Italy and the neighbourhood trattorias they loved there, so the cooking is stripped back rather than fussy and the plates are made for sharing. The room is small, with a bar built from recycled timber, a compact mezzanine upstairs and more tables out in the arcade itself, and the kitchen is open, so anyone at the bar can watch handmade pasta drop into the pot while its sauce comes together in the pan. Larger groups can claim the whole mezzanine, book a long lunch with the entire restaurant to themselves, or gather around a long table next door in Pici Wine Bar.
The menu is short and moves with the seasons. The spring list opens with olives, rosemary and sea salt focaccia, whipped ricotta with pear and truffle honey, and a daily crudo dressed with kalamata olives and orange. Pici cacio e pepe, which shares the restaurant’s name, leads the pastas, coating the thick strands in pecorino and pepper. Around it might be linguine pomodoro, which can be finished with whipped ricotta, bucatini with grilled asparagus, crispy guanciale and pecorino, a second bucatini with gorgonzola fonduta and sweet onion, mafaldine with lamb ragu, and linguine vongole. Bitter leaves with salted ricotta and orange vinaigrette, or broccoli with peperoncino, complete the table.
Wine carries as much weight as the pasta. The list leans towards smaller producers from New Zealand and Italy, favouring natural, organic and low intervention bottles. Next door, at Shop 23, Pici Wine Bar pours natural and organic wines from Aotearoa, Italy and further afield to drink on the spot or carry home, has hosted release parties with winemakers, and can be hired for a private gathering where the guests choose the music. Group set menus close with dessert, and the cheesecake finished with lemon zest, sea salt and olive oil, praised from the restaurant’s first months, arrives alongside a dark chocolate semifreddo with salted caramel.
Address: Shop 22, St Kevin’s Arcade, 183 Karangahape Road, Auckland CBD, Auckland 1010
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