Trust the Chef at Piha’s Aryeh

Now in its third summer season, Lucas Parkinson’s Aryeh, meaning lion in Aramaic, takes its name from Piha’s famed rock formation.

Tucked neatly beside Piha Store, the restaurant is sleek yet approachable, with an open kitchen anchoring the main dining room and a large deck offering uninterrupted views of Te Piha. The sundeck is reserved exclusively for walk-ins and offers a condensed menu that spans both ends of the spectrum, from the very popular fish and chips ($20 on the day we visited) to a rotating selection of dishes drawn from the restaurant’s degustation offering. For those wanting to settle in for a longer experience, there are two and three course Trust the Chef options, a five-course Signature Menu, The Story of New Zealand Extended Menu, and a five course Test Kitchen Menu (available on Wednesdays only).

We were trying the 5-course Signature Menu ($144 per person) on a balmy Sunday and given the choice between the main dining room and covered outdoor area that flows onto the sundeck, opted for outside.

Buck Buck!

We started with a selection of snacks, a pickled mussel dressed in scampi oil, Frankton heat hot sauce powder with a white wine vinegar gel, Oratia rosemary & curry leaf focaccia with Horopito cultured butter and a cup of bone broth that had been continuously cooked and topped up over 8 years.

The first entrée, titled Golden Light, was a gazpacho of Clevedon tomatoes and queen peach, poured over organic jersey curd, Curious Croppers, pickled Avondale cucumber with Piha fennel oil and locally foraged nasturtium petals served with a side of crostini. This was a standout. Our next entrée, Black & White Thoughts, was named by Visit Auckland as one of the city’s 100 most iconic dishes, and it didn’t disappoint. Line-caught Leigh fish ceviche sat at the centre of the bowl, wrapped in a Kewpie-inspired mayonnaise and topped with pickled Northland daikon, Piha ice plant leaves, and a cuttlefish ink rice shard. The dish arrived with a wry explanation from Lucas, “it represents the minds of men”. Another standout dish.

Golden Light

Buck Buck! followed shortly after Black & White Thoughts, a wild-shot venison tartare paired with pickled stone fruit, shallot, Marlborough black garlic emulsion, cured Whangaripo yolk, foraged flora, puffed Canterbury buckwheat, and Pāurau watercress.

As we worked our way through the first half of the meal, sundeck diners drifted in and out, many of them sandy, barefoot families with rash shirts drying on chair backs. The contrast quintessentially Kiwi.

Service matched the setting, casual and friendly with a local feel. Our first main, The Future of Farming, arrived with dramatic knives housed in leather sheaths that wouldn’t have looked out of place on the set of Lord of the Rings. The dish itself a 55-day aged, grass-fed Māpāri ribeye topped with tallownaise and aged sherry vinegar. We ate this with Roasted Ohakune carrots finished with Piha mānuka honey, puffed Taranaki quinoa and a herb gremolata as well as tallow fried Pukekohe agria potatoes topped with a kawakawa emulsion and oregano salt, and a plate of Mangaweka purple asparagus with parmesan custard and cold-pressed olive oil, a simple, seasonal plate paying homage to Lucas’s Italian ancestry.

Sundeck, Fish and Chips

Not for the faint of heart, the mains are rich and a glass of something fresh is welcomed once you’ve made it this far. As we were dining early (12:00PM) and had planned a beach walk before the 53-minute drive back to the city, I opted for a glass of Phoenix non-alcoholic sparkling white wine and my partner a 0% beer. Local and international spirits were available alongside the usual suspects as mixing options. A classic mojito is on the menu as well as a cold pressed juice of the day which can be enjoyed as is or over ice with vodka or gin. Panhead’s Supercharger APA and Quickchange XPA is on tap as well as an Aryeh Lager. The wine list is varied and very good, featuring a range of organic, sustainable and biodynamic pours with an explanation as to why each was selected. Standouts include the Milton Chenin Blanc, Mt Edward Gamay and Stonecroft ‘Serine’ Syrah.

Holy Basil

We finished the meal with Holy Basil, an almond and kawakawa torta with Waitākere strawberries, basil oil, strawberry ice cream, a Canterbury buckwheat tuile and Lucas’s take on a ‘roll-up’. A particularly exciting addition for someone like me, whose mother banned this lunchbox hero, so I never got to do the wrap-it-around-your-Staedtler-Tradition-110-pencil thing.

If you need yet another reason to visit Piha, Aryeh is just that. Grounded in respect for whenua, seasonality and the ecosystems that sustain it, the hyper-seasonal menus draw on local produce, from premium farmed meats and wild-shot game to sustainably sourced seafood, shaped by relationships with nearby growers, farmers, fishermen and hunters. “I care deeply about the planet, and more so what sort of earth we leave behind for our children,” Lucas says. “I try to be as sustainable as possible so others can follow, add and adapt to the way things should be, in order for us to achieve an industry that is less harmful to our ecosystems.”