Osteria Uno brings small plates and fresh pasta to Hinemoa Street, the main road through Birkenhead on Auckland’s North Shore, in the manner of a true local Italian. Jordan and Sarah MacDonald opened it in late 2023 beside Duo, the cafe and bistro they already ran next door, and later added Bon Pinard, a wine bar a few doors along that is handy for an aperitivo or a nightcap. The restaurant fills the old Stott’s Butchery building, which dates from around 1910 and has since housed a fish and chip shop and an embroidery store. The renovation kept the worn original wall and floor tiles and the stained glass windows, then added a heavy marble counter, terracotta finger tiles, dark timber tables and deep red leather banquettes, giving the room an intimate yet lively feel.
Each pasta begins as a scratch dough worked by hand, and the pasta machine standing in the dining room makes no secret of it. The owners describe their aim as the kind of neighbourhood Italian place they love to eat at themselves, and the pasta list reads that way. A recent dinner menu has included rigatoni alla vodka with stracciatella and basil, casarecce with asparagus, cavolo nero pesto and pine nuts, creste di gallo with a lamb shoulder ragu and pecorino espuma, and mafaldine with beef cheek, shiitake and egg yolk. One dish that draws particular praise is the prawn and Fraser Isle spanner crab cappelletti, served in a crustacean jus with a deep savoury richness.
Before the pasta, the small plates are made for sharing around the table. Freshly shucked oysters come with a prosecco mignonette, steak tartare is paired with chilli, capers and a wakame cracker, and the focaccia arrives with balsamic butter in place of the usual oil and vinegar. Burrata is finished with a spicy nduja caramel, arancini are filled with gorgonzola and caramelised onion, and calamari fritti come with a lemon and condensed milk aioli. Greens are treated with equal care, from bitter leaves with an orange dressing and crispy buckwheat to grilled broccolini with salsa verde, buttermilk and fried garlic. Dessert might be the house tiramisu, a coconut panna cotta with passionfruit, or a focaccia pudding with banana whip and caramel.
The drinks list keeps to the same Italian line. Cocktails run from a Garibaldi of Campari and freshly squeezed orange to an Italian paloma built on Amaro del Capo and tequila, a limoncello margarita made with the restaurant’s own limonata, and a dirty negroni sharpened with olive brine. Peroni pours on tap beside local beers, house pinot grigio and montepulciano come by the carafe, and a cellar list gathered over the years ranges from New Zealand and Italy to France, Spain and Austria. Saturdays bring an Italian long lunch, a set run of shared plates that opens with a glass of prosecco and reaches tiger prawn mafaldine, and a short children’s menu offers simple pastas followed by ice cream with chocolate sauce.
Address: 140 Hinemoa Street, Birkenhead, Auckland 0626
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