Something’s been going on at a little railway cottage on Waitea Branch Road in Kākahi, next to the main trunk line. News was that top restaurateurs Jeremy Rameka and Natalie Bulman were moving back to town. But if you turn up in Kākahi looking for a flash new restaurant or the glitzy trappings of superstar hospitality, you won’t find it here. Instead, go down the path at the side of the cottage and there is Ni. “It’s a shed,” says Jeremy. “A shed with some stuff in it.” After closing their phenomenally successful restaurant Pacifica in Napier after 20 years, it was time for a change and, for Jeremy, time to come home. With space for just six diners in a ply-lined room that is two-thirds kitchen, Ni is a modest stage for a chef’s-choice menu, a very personal expression of hospitality and, of course, Jeremy’s extraordinary food.

The word ni is Welsh for ‘us’ or ‘we’. Jeremy says, “We wanted a name that was short and precise and that meant a lot. Something with a big meaning for the both of us.” It tells of whakapapa and connections.

Natalie continues, acknowledging her Welsh roots. “Whakapapa not just of our lineage and family, but what it’s taken to get here – all the people that have come through Pacifica, everyone that has been involved in both of our journeys.” Such a tiny word, loaded with meaning. And for the couple, Ni makes old connections into new connections. On the opening night, Jeremy realised that he was linked to everyone in the room – he’d been to school with one diner, another was the twin of his cousin’s best friend.

“Manaakitanga is a thing in Māori,” says Jeremy. “It’s the hospitable part where you give without the thought of receiving anything. And that needs to flow through the restaurant. It doesn’t matter what you have, what you give, as long as you can give it with the full intention of your heart.”

For Jeremy and Natalie, Ni isn’t simply the next chapter after Pacifica – it’s the embodiment of ni: a restaurant built around connection, conversation and the belief that hospitality is so much more than plates on the table. nikakahi.com TRACY WHITMEY