Pici

Apple, thyme, stracciatella, EVOO

As you will have surmised from a quick glance of this review, I had a rather beige meal at Pici, although it was anything but in terms of flavour. This tiny but mighty pasta bar has been kicking around for several years now and continues to be as brilliant as ever.

On my recent visit my husband and I were perched at their cute window seat looking out at the comings and goings of the humming St Kevin’s Arcade, what a spot! We started with a special of julienned apples, stracciatella and thyme drizzled in liquid-gold EVOO (the latter refers to both the taste and the going-rate of this new commodity). It was bedecked with crispy pangrattato crumbs, the whole thing an autumnal delight slapped onto their light and spongey house-made focaccia (which I am pleased to report was more bread than olive oil, a balance some places aren’t getting right). A word of advice for the uninitiated: try to save a bit of your focaccia to mop up the last of your pasta juices.

Fettuccine Rizzoli, anchovy butter

Campanelle, oyster mushroom, pecorino

The drawcard of Pici is the exceptional handmade pasta of all shapes and sizes created in-house. Fettuccine, a style whose dried-supermarket counterpart I loathe for its indelicate, stodgy nature is transformed here into light and springy noodles with fantastic chew-factor. We enjoyed the rediscovery of this pasta shape in a wonderful Rizzoli anchovy butter emulsion, creamy in texture but not in calories, sharpened by a finish of lemon and and shower of golden pangrattato. It was brilliant and my favourite of the pastas that night.

Orange sorbet

The trumpet-shaped campanelle was still an admirable dish in its own right, ornate curls of wavy-edged pasta interspersed by meaty slices of oyster mushrooms that had been kissed by the grill to give it a subtle smoky flavour, finished with lots of sharp and tangy pecorino. They’re pasta masters here and again the campanelle was cooked just right.

Normally the word sorbet makes me shudder, triggered by the memories of overly sweet, sugar-laden and overly smooth confections. But the orange sorbet at Pici is an absolute must to finish on. A rough looking, sun-yellow sphere of crunchy, textural ice that reminds me a bit of granita. It is so tangy and orangey, an orange itself pales in comparison to the flavour of this sorbet. It is best described as an icy sherbet, and it is good.

Pici
Shop 22, St Kevin’s Arcade
183 Karangahape Road
Auckland Central 1010
@pici.krd