Met up with a friend at Tango, a casual Argentinean steakhouse in Hong Kong. I've always remembered Tango for the chimichurri and not the quality of the meat, and this time was no exception. Absolutely amazing chimichurri though - the best in the city!

I expect things to pick up a bit into May and June. If things quiet down in the middle east, I may have a chance to drop by Dubai. I’m really looking forward to trying Row on 45, after the amazing experience I had at Row on 5.

Otherwise, just continuing to chill and eat my way around the world.

That same idea carries through to the room. The interior is dark, understated, and quietly expensive rather than overtly grand. On our visit, the room was filled with exactly the sort of crowd you would expect: obvious business dinners, family gatherings, and tables that looked like they had been coming here for years. It has the atmosphere of a serious Central dining room, not a showpiece destination for tourists. The effect is more controlled than flashy, which suits the food.

We decided to go with the tasting menu, which felt like the clearest way to understand the kitchen’s range.

The opening selection of appetisers set the tone neatly. There was classic char siu, suckling pig, and a crisp tofu preparation. Nothing here was trying to be clever. The point was execution, and that much was apparent from the start.

The lobster course came next, done in two ways using the two halves of the tail. One half was stir-fried with crispy garlic, green onion, and a good deal of wok hei, the kind of dish that reminds you how much flavour Cantonese cooking can build from heat, oil, and timing alone. The other half was removed from the shell and paired with asparagus and Chinese fungus, more restrained in style, allowing the sweetness of the lobster to come through more directly. It was a smart progression, showing both power and finesse with the same ingredient.

After that came a double-boiled soup of fish maw and matsutake mushroom, made using the classic Chinese low-and-slow approach that avoids diluting the broth with excess moisture. This was deeply concentrated, clear, and full of umami.

A traditional fish course followed: steamed grouper fillets, deboned for convenience, finished with blistering hot scallion oil. This is one of those Cantonese preparations that can seem almost too simple if you do not stop to think about how much precision it requires. The fish has nowhere to hide. Here, it was handled properly, delicate and clean, with the hot oil providing fragrance rather than brute force.

The wagyu beef came glazed in a sweet sauce and served with meticulously cut bok choi. Cantonese beef courses at this level often risk becoming a little predictable, but this was well judged and balanced, with enough sweetness to compliment the fattines of the beef without overwhelming it.

One of the neater dishes of the night was a traditional preparation of poached Tianjin cabbage in rich chicken broth with wolfberries. The cabbage had been carefully carved into the shape of a flower. The dish itself was elegant and soothing, and a reminder that high-end Cantonese cooking often reaches its most sophisticated expression not through extravagance, but through taking a humble ingredient and treating it with extraordinary care.

The highlight of the night came at the end of the savoury courses: a large rehydrated abalone served with fried rice in abalone sauce. This was excellent. Properly prepared abalone should be tender without losing its structure, and this one had exactly that quality, rich and deeply savoury, with the sauce carrying all the patient concentration you hope for in a dish like this. The fried rice underneath was not an afterthought either, but a useful delivery mechanism for all that sauce. If you are going to come to a place like Ying Jee Club, this is the kind of dish you want them to make for you.

Dessert was relatively traditional, a double-boiled bird’s nest followed by petit fours on the side, including water chestnut jelly and an almond biscuit. It was a gentle ending, not especially theatrical, but consistent with the measured tone of the meal.

What impressed me most about Ying Jee Club was not that any one dish was wildly inventive or shocking. In fact, that is almost the wrong way to think about the place. The strength of the restaurant lies in the consistency and care across the board. The kitchen takes traditional Cantonese forms, occasionally gives them a slight twist, and executes them with a level of discipline that very few restaurants can sustain across an entire meal.

There was no single dish that left me stunned, but there were no weak points either, and that kind of consistency is harder to pull off than a one-off signature flourish. For serious, highly accomplished Cantonese cooking with Michelin pedigree, Ying Jee Club is the real thing. Worth a return visit.

Total Damage: 4800 HKD/2 people.

I enjoyed the experience at Ying Jee Club so much, that I ended up returning for dim sum just a few days later. I was impressed again. No caviar, gold flake or foie gras here. Just simple Cantonese cooking, exceptionally well-executed, every single time.

Teppanyaki Mihara Goten is one of the more interesting Japanese openings in Hong Kong because it is not trying to recreate the old-school hotel teppanyaki model, all flashing knives and overworked theatrics. It is smaller, more chef-led, and noticeably more thoughtful than that. The restaurant is built around chef Terufumi Mihara’s “Wa Modern” style, a format that blends teppanyaki with kappo sensibilities and allows in a few French, Italian, and Chinese ideas without ever feeling like obvious fusion for the sake of it.

Chef Mihara first built his reputation in a more homey Tseung Kwan O shop before moving the concept to Causeway Bay in 2023. The Cubus version feels less like a completely new restaurant than a polished second chapter, one that takes the original idea and sharpens it into something more refined and more ambitious. The move also pushed the restaurant more clearly toward a kappo-style teppanyaki identity, with seasonal ingredients, a more deliberate sequence, and a stronger sense of progression across the meal.

The chef behind the restaurant is, of course, Terufumi Mihara himself. The place carries his name, and the whole concept feels unmistakably personal. Each service is said to run under his close supervision, and the menu reflects his broader philosophy: premium Japanese produce, prepared with the precision and sequencing of kappo, but filtered through the live-fire steel surface of teppanyaki. That hybrid is really the whole point. This is not just beef and seafood on a hot plate. It is trying to create a more layered, seasonal, chef-driven teppanyaki experience.

Tucked away inside a fairly nondescript office building in Causeway Bay, the restaurant itself is intimate enough that our group of seven took up half of the 14-seat counter. The seats are arranged in a semicircle around the central teppan grill, which gives the room a good sense of focus without feeling cramped. It is a small room, but not a severe one. The atmosphere felt polished and quietly modern rather than formal, and the scale of the place suited the style of cooking.

The menu was somewhat intricate on paper, with various supplements and optional upgrades, but in practice there was essentially one tasting menu, with a few decisions around toppings and additions. That worked well enough. At a place like this, too much choice would only get in the way of the pacing.

The meal began with a firefly squid canapé, a neat opening bite. Firefly squid can turn unpleasantly slimy very quickly if mishandled, but this one was fresh and clean, paired with broccolini in a way that let the sweetness of the squid show through.

A small bottle of sake appeared at some point early in the meal, though I confess I can no longer remember what exactly what it was or any tasting notes. That may say more about the evening than the sake.

The sashimi course was yellowtail with a jellied soy sauce, a restrained and elegant start before the teppan portion of the meal really began. After that came one of the more enjoyable rituals of this style of restaurant: the presentation of the raw ingredients before they were cooked. Abalone, amadai, rehydrated shark fin, mantis shrimp, and beautifully marbled A5 wagyu all made their appearance one by one, each ingredient laid out like a promise.

We also added an optional supplement of Hokkaido sea urchin, served in a deconstructed uni gunkan format. This was indulgent in exactly the way uni should be, vivid in colour, sweet, creamy, and deeply marine. A little obvious perhaps, but no less enjoyable for that.

One of the best dishes of the night followed soon after. Arctic surf clams arrived in a hollandaise sauce topped with caviar, and this was superb. Clams can so easily be ruined by overcooking or buried under too much sauce, but these retained their snap and sweetness, while the hollandaise gave them richness and the caviar added just enough salinity. It was one of the best clam dishes I’ve had in quite some time.

Then came the signature dish of the restaurant, a large piece of shark fin served in a creamy chicken soup. Shark fin is, at heart, a texture ingredient, valued less for flavour than for the way it absorbs whatever surrounds it. Here, the thick, concentrated chicken broth did exactly what it needed to do, giving the fin both context and depth. It was luxurious in the old-fashioned way, and rather good.

The grilled mantis shrimp in soy butter was less successful. Mantis shrimp should have a certain spring and sweetness when fresh, but this one was a little mushy and lacked the texture I was hoping for. Not disastrous, but clearly one of the misses of the night.

A much stronger dish followed. A pan-fried piece of tilefish arrived with remarkably crisp skin, served in a clam and basil consommé. On paper, basil feels slightly unconventional in this format, but the dish worked. The fish itself was excellent, and the broth gave it brightness and fragrance without overwhelming the delicacy of the flesh. One of my highlights of the evening.

The grilled abalone with bamboo shoots in a uni sauce was well executed, but less memorable than I expected. There was nothing wrong with it at all, but it never quite rose above being competent and luxurious. At this level, that can sometimes read as faint praise.

The lobster, grilled in soy butter and served with basil pesto and tapenade, was similarly a little underwhelming. The seasoning combination was interesting enough, but the lobster itself was slightly overcooked and chewy, which is hard to forgive when lobster is meant to be one of the centrepieces.

Before the beef course, the chef presented two cuts: an A4 wagyu sirloin and an A5 “drunken” tenderloin. I appreciated that they specifically source A4 rather than A5 for the sirloin, recognizing that too much fat in that cut would become cloying. It is the sort of decision that suggests someone is thinking carefully rather than merely chasing labels. The beef arrived properly cooked, served with garlic chips, wasabi, and three different salts. The portion size was also exactly right. With wagyu, generosity can become a burden quite quickly, and any larger serving would have tipped from indulgent into exhausting.

Both arrived perfectly cooked on the plate with garlic chips, wasabi, and three kinds of salt. The portion was just right; the fattiness of the beef makes it extremely filling, and any more would have been unmanageable.

To finish the savoury courses, we were given a choice of three claypot rice preparations for the table. We went with grilled eel, snow crab, and flounder fin. This was a good ending to the meal, the sort of comfortingly substantial final course that teppanyaki does especially well when it remembers that starch matters as much as the headline proteins.

Dessert was red bean paste with mochi and ice cream, a straightforward and pleasant finish without trying to reinvent anything.

Overall, I came away fairly impressed. There were definitely some hits and misses, but the stronger dishes were strong enough to make the meal feel worthwhile. The arctic surf clams were excellent, the shark fin chicken soup was unusual and memorable, and I liked the inventiveness of the menu overall, particularly where Mihara’s kappo-influenced sequencing gave the meal a bit more shape than standard teppanyaki usually manages.

I actually preferred Teppanyaki Mihara Goten to its Michelin-starred neighbour, I M Teppanyaki & Wine, though the two are clearly aiming at different price points and perhaps slightly different diners. Still, for a more intimate, chef-led alternative to the usual teppanyaki formula, this is very much worth a return visit.

Total Damage: 12,500 HKD / 7 people

His path through Asia has been anything but linear. He helped launch a cocktail renaissance in Beijing with the opening of Apothecary in 2009, ran a restaurant called Bei at the Opposite House hotel, and created Traitor Zhou’s Nonkosher Delicatessen, producing artisanal cured meats and bagels. After more than four years running Okra 1949 in Beijing’s Sanlitun district, he moved to Hong Kong in 2015 to set up Okra Bar and Okra Kitchen in Sai Ying Pun. Okra Bar was a luxe eight-seat omakase sushi counter; Okra Kitchen, downstairs, was a casual izakaya blending Japanese, Chinese, and American influences.

He became deeply embedded in Hong Kong’s food community, championing local ingredients like phoenix eye nuts, dried oysters from Lau Fau Shan, and wild rice shoots. Okra eventually closed, with Levy speaking publicly about the Hong Kong ingredients he would miss most.

Max Max Pizza Pizza is his current pop-up project. He is the inaugural chef at the new Chef’s Room in the Upper House Hotel, a private dining enclave curated by culinary advisor Ricardo Chaneton that hosts rotating residencies. The residency features a tasting menu of handcrafted pizzas shaped by his New Orleans roots and sushi training, with a focus on sustainably sourced local ingredients.

Chef Max finishing the mise en place as diners filed into the private dining room.

True to his sushi chef roots, the mise en place was prepped and displayed prominently in wooden boxes ahead of the meal.

Somen, nuts, and olives awaited us as we filed into the intimate twelve-person counter surrounding the chef.

A glass of sake with pizza. A slightly unusual pairing, but it worked.

The only non-pizza dish on the menu: a zucchini tempura on sheep's milk ricotta, served over a cold gazpacho.

Chef Levy preparing the first pizza alongside his sous chef, oddly named Tony Leung (an incredibly famous movie star in Hong Kong). One of the other patrons kept commenting on the sous chef's muscular forearms, adding a side of sexual harassment to accompany dinner.

The first pizza had a base of porcini mushrooms, stracciatella, and morel mushrooms with pecorino, topped with a drizzle of honey.

Next, their take on a Hawaiian: coriander, basil pesto, pineapple, and jalapeño. Herbal and spicy.

Next, sauerkraut, broccolini, sardines, and pine nuts. An unexpected combination, and unexpectedly good.

Thai sausage, coriander, confit garlic, and sweet potato. I wasn't sure what to expect (sweet potato on pizza?) but it held together well.

Razor clams, Manchego, zucchini, and rosemary came next. I love razor clams, but their presence was hard to detect on the pizza itself.

Chef Max's take on the classic pepperoni: five cheeses, mushroom, and mala sausage.

Dessert pizza: Nutella, roasted pear, mascarpone, and honey. The Nutella goes well with nearly anything, and the roasted pear was a great pairing.

Overall, a really enjoyable experience. I wasn't sure what to expect from a "pizza omakase," but it turned into an intimate night with groups of patrons laughing and chatting with the chef. We learned about Chef Max's inspiration: making pizza during COVID, and his efforts to demonstrate the versatility of the dough as a base for everything from savoury to sweet. Would I go back? Probably not. I was fairly sick of pizza by the end of it. But it was definitely worth doing once.

Total damage: 2300 HKD/2 people.

I M Teppanyaki & Wine was founded by Chef Lawrence Mok Tsan-lam, who spent more than 30 years in some of Hong Kong's best kitchens before opening his own teppanyaki restaurant in 2013. It earned its first Michelin star in 2016 and has held it ever since.

We decided to do something simple and went with the set lunches.

The room is cavernous and dark, built around two central hibachi grills with 14 seats at the counter and a dark black motif running through everything.

The meal opened with a chawanmushi topped with a generous portion of salmon roe and a dab of wasabi for a bit of kick. The raw ingredients were then laid out on the grill in front of us, as is tradition.

I'm usually not awake before noon, so a lunch reservation required a bit of caffeine to get me going. I asked for a coffee early, but the restaurant didn't have much of a coffee programme; an Americano from a super-automatic was as good as it was going to get.

I’ve also been trying to manage my alcohol intake recently, so I swapped the bubbly for a sparkling genmaicha tea, yuzu-infused and on the sweeter side. It turned out to be a good accompaniment to the meal.

The star of the lunch was the crispy tilefish, served on a bed of pumpkin sauce. Always a crowd pleaser and perfectly done here: the skin blistered and popping, while the flesh remained fall-apart tender.

Next, big-head shrimp served on a piece of sea kelp, followed by abalone on kelp with an abalone liver sauce. Both were clean and well-executed, letting the ingredients do the talking.

The A4 wagyu tenderloin came wrapped around deep-fried garlic flakes and green onion, rich without being heavy, with the garlic adding a sharp crunch against the soft beef.

To close the savoury courses, a traditional fried rice with whitebait and dried shrimp, served alongside Japanese pickles, miso soup with giant clams, and a side of fried bean sprouts. Homely, filling, and exactly the right way to land after the parade of premium proteins.

This turned out to be one of the best-value Michelin meals I've had in Hong Kong. I think the only cheaper starred restaurant I can recall is Tim Ho Wan, which I've never been a fan of. At this price point, it's hard to find fault with anything. The tilefish was the highlight, the beef roll was excellent, and as an introduction to high-end teppanyaki in the city, I M Teppanyaki is a great pick.

Total damage: 1200 HKD/2 people

Few Cantonese restaurants in Hong Kong carry the same weight. Forum was founded in 1974 by Yeung Koon-yat with HK$600,000 and a handful of business partners, before being officially registered in 1977. The early years were not especially smooth. Partners left one by one, and Yeung eventually became the sole owner. Over the decades, however, Forum grew into one of the great institutions of Cantonese dining in the city, a place with the reputation of a rich man’s canteen, known for banquet-style luxury, old-school polish, and above all, abalone.

The cuisine at Forum is unapologetically traditional Cantonese fine dining, the kind that leans heavily on premium dried seafood, painstaking technique, superior stock, and the quiet confidence that comes from not needing to reinvent anything. The restaurant became especially famous for Yeung’s abalone, prepared according to a method he refined over decades, braising superior dried abalone in a deeply concentrated broth of chicken, pork bones, and lean pork over charcoal stoves until the texture turned supple and the flavour sank all the way through.

Chef Yeung Koon-yat led the kitchen from the beginning until his death in 2023 at the age of 90. His life reads like the classic Hong Kong culinary story. Born in China, he came to Hong Kong in 1949 and began at the very bottom, working as a dishwasher before slowly climbing through the trade over more than sixty years. He did not come with some glamorous pedigree or famous European detour. His reputation was built the hard way, through discipline, repetition, and a near-obsessive pursuit of technical perfection. Over time, his work earned international recognition, including the Club des Chefs des Chefs Gold Award in 1996 and its highest honour in 2009. His signature Ah Yat braised Yoshihama abalone, often served with goose web, became one of the defining dishes of high-end Cantonese cuisine.

After Yeung’s passing, the kitchen passed into the hands of his long-time protégés, with Adam Wong Lung-to now serving as executive chef. Wong joined Forum in 1992 as Yeung’s apprentice and never really left, dedicating more than three decades to the restaurant. His background is steeped in culinary institutions and guild-style recognition, but what matters more is that he appears to understand that Forum is not a place for dramatic reinvention. The menu, style, and overall philosophy have remained largely unchanged. The restaurant continues to preserve Yeung’s recipes almost exactly, while allowing only the occasional collaborative flourish around the edges.

The room itself feels exactly as an old guard Cantonese dining room probably should. Slightly dated Chinese décor, polished surfaces, red accents, dark wood screens, chandeliers, porcelain vases, and the sort of understated formality that now feels increasingly rare in Hong Kong. It is not fashionable in the contemporary sense. It does not need to be. The whole place feels like a preserved piece of another era, more banquet hall than tasting-menu theatre.

There were several tasting menus on offer, alongside a thick à la carte menu full of the restaurant’s classics. We decided to go with one of the tasting menus, partly because it allowed the kitchen to show its range, and partly because it seemed the best way to understand how Forum thinks about luxury Cantonese food. As the meal unfolded, one of the more interesting themes became clear. Several dishes took familiar Hong Kong street-side or everyday formats and elevated them using premium ingredients and banquet-style techniques.

The first example of this was a deep-fried lobster toast with garlic and chili. In its more ordinary form, this would usually be made with shrimp paste, the kind of thing you might happily eat from a cha chaan teng or snack stall without giving it much thought. Here, the restaurant substituted lobster tail, then topped it with deep-fried garlic, bird’s eye chili, and green onion for a bit of heat and a whisper of wok hei. It was excellent. Rich, crisp, and aromatic.

One of the highlights of the night came next, Forum’s luxurious take on imitation shark fin soup. This is the sort of dish you can find all over the city in humbler form, where vermicelli stands in for shark fin in a thickened broth with shredded chicken and mushrooms. Forum reversed the substitution and put the real thing back in, serving an actual shark fin soup with the traditional street-side condiments on the side: red vinegar, sesame oil, and fine white pepper. The result was wonderful. There was something faintly amusing about presenting such a luxurious version of such a familiar Hong Kong comfort dish, but it worked beautifully. The broth was rich and deeply savoury, and the condiments gave it that nostalgic local identity.

Then came the dish most closely associated with Forum, and the one that explains why Yeung earned the title “King of Abalone”. This was a deeply traditional preparation of rehydrated dried seafood, featuring a whole braised abalone and sea cucumber served with Chinese lettuce and a small ball of rice to mop up the sauce. Both sea cucumber and abalone are texture foods as much as flavour foods. On their own, they are relatively restrained, absorbing the essence of whatever they are cooked in. Sea cucumber tends toward a gelatinous springiness, while abalone can easily turn tough if mishandled. Here, both were superb. The abalone sauce had that dense, savoury depth that only comes from long reduction and patience, and the little rice ball was a smart touch, because wasting that sauce would have been unforgivable.

After that came a small teacup of cold-pressed rose tea, functioning as a palate cleanser after the intensity of the abalone course. Light, floral, and neat.

The next dish continued the broader theme of luxurious Cantonese banquet cooking. An egg white custard arrived with bird’s nest and crab meat, seasoned without salt, alongside a small tin of caviar. We were told to try it first on its own, then with the caviar, to see how the dish changed. Without the caviar, the sweetness of the crab came through more clearly, and the textural contrast between the custard and the bird’s nest felt more pronounced. With the caviar, the dish took on more depth and salinity, becoming more complete, if perhaps a little less delicate. It was a clever way of letting the diner calibrate the dish in real time.

A pan-fried star grouper followed, served in a strongly alcoholic aged ginger wine broth. The skin was excellent, blistered and crisp, almost like a good tilefish, while the flesh remained moist and delicate. The broth, however, was extremely assertive, a concentrated blast of alcohol and ginger wine with green onion lingering at the edges. I liked the fish more than the sauce. The latter bordered on overwhelming.

Another of the more playful dishes followed: a deboned chicken wing stuffed with fennel pork mince. Juicy, aromatic, and unexpectedly herbal, it almost read more European than Cantonese. In fact, the flavour profile reminded me more of a good British pork sausage than anything I usually associate with banquet Cantonese cooking. Strange in theory, but enjoyable in practice.

To round out the savoury part of the meal, we were served dry-stirred vermicelli with braised mushrooms, shredded fish maw, poached gai lan, and more of that excellent abalone sauce. This was a deeply satisfying closing starch, the sort of dish that feels far more luxurious than it sounds on paper once all the sauce and concentrated seafood flavours begin to settle in.

Dessert was less convincing. A chilled Cantonese sweet soup arrived with crispy aged lily buds, osmanthus, spongey Chinese fungus, and barley-like grains, alongside an osmanthus jelly roll topped with water chestnut flakes. It was certainly interesting, but not my favourite part of the meal. The textures felt slightly awkward together, and the whole thing leaned more unconventional than delicious.

Overall, though, Forum was a very strong meal, and one that captured a style of Cantonese luxury that Hong Kong does better than almost anywhere else. What I liked most was the way the restaurant balanced old-school banquet grandeur with occasional references to familiar Hong Kong street food forms. The shark fin soup was superb, the abalone and sea cucumber fully lived up to their reputation, and the whole meal felt grounded in the kind of culinary tradition that does not need to chase novelty. Compared to another giant of Cantonese cuisine in Hong Kong, T’ang Court, I much preferred Forum.

Total damage: 6400 HKD/2 people

In good news though, I found a great shakshuka.

The restaurant that bears his name has moved twice since then. The original was a compact shophouse on Stanley Street with a 26-seat counter and an open kitchen. Around 2020, it relocated to a larger space on Amoy Street for better flow. The current home, since early 2024, is on Mohamed Sultan Road, and the shift is significant. The room is cavernous and contemporary, with an industrial edge and three open islands in the centre where the kitchen team prepares every course in full view. It feels less like a dining room and more like a stage, which is exactly the point.

Inspirations pull from those stints abroad - French base with experimental edges, travel flavors, and fresh suppliers. Signature items shift often, but examples include refined takes on seafood or veggies with unexpected pairings, like punchy sauces or textures from his global exposure.

Sous chef Kirby Quinol, who rejoined the team in recent years after stints at The Black Swan and L’Angelus, handles much of the daily execution alongside Lerouy. Multiple wine cellars sit in the back of the restaurant, packed floor to ceiling with bottles spilling out of their racks. What I saw was apparently only half the collection.

Lerouy operates on a carte blanche basis. There is no menu upfront, no choices, no preview of what’s coming. You sit down and eat what the chef has decided to cook that day, built around whatever is seasonal, whatever has arrived fresh, and whatever ideas are circling his head that week. The printed menu arrives only at the end of the meal (I kept mine as a souvenir). It’s an omakase philosophy filtered through a deeply French sensibility, and the kitchen has held a Michelin star since the 2019 guide.

The meal opened with a round of canapés, each one distinct in flavour, texture, and temperature.

A foie gras terrine arrived on an anchovy crisp with yellow plum, rich and sharp in equal measure.

Next, a composition of beetroot (freeze-dried, diced, layered) with creamy feta and smoked eel, where the smokiness lifted the earthy sweetness of the beet.

Then escargot, tucked into a Japanese egg custard with classic garlic and parsley butter and a parsley foam on top; a clever Franco-Japanese crossover that somehow felt natural rather than forced.

The last canapé was a flatbread with Munster cheese, Alsatian bacon from Chef Lerouy’s hometown, and chives. That Alsace connection would resurface as a quiet theme throughout the night.

The bread course followed: a sourdough loaf pulled straight from the oven, still releasing a puff of steam when torn apart. Served with three kinds of butter and olive oil.

Then came a Spanish Carabinero prawn, served cold with slice of lardo in a umami daikon sauce, and a generous scoop of caviar on top. Well seasoned, briny, with a clean acidity that made it immediately refreshing.

The Alsatian thread returned with the next course: toothfish and ham wrapped in nori like a gunkan sushi roll. The toothfish had been pressed with a chicken mousse and sat in a sauerkraut sauce. I'm not typically a fan of sauerkraut, but this worked. The sourness cut through the richness of the fish and chicken without overwhelming either, and that kind of well-balanced acidity became another recurring motif as the evening went on.

A crab Spätzle followed, topped with sea urchin and salmon roe. The Spätzle had been pan-fried after boiling to give it a slight crispiness, then finished with crisped leeks in an umami-rich kombu sauce. A hearty dish with a lot happening on the plate, but nothing competing.

From that density, the kitchen pivoted to something quieter. Norwegian langoustine with white asparagus, walnuts, and veal tongue in a lovage sauce. Herbaceous, grassy, and restrained after the richness of the Spätzle.

The main was French pigeon, served with a small piece of turnip, a turnip salad, and a sauce built from apple, passionfruit, and quince. Sweet and savoury in the same bite, with a gentle acidity from the quince that kept pulling the dish back into balance.

An optional cheese course followed, which I declined. By that point I was running out of room.

For the palate cleanser, different preparations of grape (freeze-dried yoghurt, diced fresh grapes, grape sorbet) came layered together, bright and cooling.

Dessert was Chef Lerouy's take on French toast, though with the hazelnuts involved, my first thought was that it looked and tasted like a Ferrero Rocher. I mean that as a compliment.

The meal closed with a round of petit fours: a chocolate bonbon, a chocolate canelé, a passionfruit jelly, and a triple sec and mandarin jelly perched on top of a pistachio cream meringue.

Overall, this was a really fun night. I spent quite a bit of time talking about food with the Chef as well as the kitchen staff. I was sat right by the main kitchen island, in the midst of all the action. The quality of the meal itself was excellent. A creative menu, well-executed. Worth returning.

Total damage: 330 SGD/1 person

The Connaught project came in 2008, part of a major refurbishment of the historic Mayfair hotel. The restaurant took over the former grill room previously run by Angela Hartnett under Gordon Ramsay Holdings. Darroze was initially apprehensive but won over by the space and the owners. Stars followed quickly: the first in 2009, the second in 2011, and the third in 2021. She now oversees three restaurants across two countries (the three-starred Connaught, two-starred Marsan par Hélène Darroze in Paris, and one-starred Hélène Darroze à Villa La Coste in Provence) for a total of six Michelin stars. Her cooking draws deeply from her Landes heritage (foie gras, family-produced Armagnac, Espelette pepper) while folding in global influences from her travels. Day-to-day kitchen leadership at The Connaught falls to Executive Chef Marco Zampese, an Italian from the Veneto who joined around 2018 and executes Darroze's vision with his own technical precision.

This was my second visit. I remembered the whimsical board game menu from the first time, where you could remove pieces from the board and what remained would be the key dishes in your meal. That detail had stuck with me. The restaurant has since undergone a full renovation, and the board game concept was retired along with the old décor. The room is now all pinks and pastels, with indirect lighting and a colour palette that reminded me of the pink room at Sketch. The waiters wore pastel blue suits; the waitresses, dark red dresses. It looked beautiful, though something of the playfulness had gone.

The meal began with a welcome drink: duck consommé served in a misshapen ceramic mug, finished with juniper and pine oil. Herbaceous and surprisingly complex for something that arrived before I'd even looked at the menu.

Three canapés followed. A pumpkin tartlet with daikon. Goat cheese sandwiched between leek leaf crackers with a rose and horseradish jelly on top. And a small doughnut filled with duck meat, warm and rich. All three were well-executed, compact little previews of what was to come.

The tasting menu ran seven courses with several supplement options. I went with the caviar and, naturally, the signature Armagnac Darroze, but skipped the black truffle seasonal supplement.

The caviar course arrived as a generous scoop over thin slices of raw, crunchy cauliflower with crushed Piedmont hazelnuts, gold leaf, and a sorrel foam sitting in a sea urchin custard. I found out later it was the first night they had served this particular dish, which made it all the more impressive for how confidently it landed.

Next, a beetroot dish with smoked crème fraîche, trout and pike roe, and barbecued kombu. The first hit was pure salinity before giving way to the creaminess of the fraîche and the fresh sweetness of the beetroot underneath.

The bread course brought a homemade rye sourdough with two kinds of French butter: a simple salted version and a peppery Espelette butter. The sourdough would reappear later in the meal in a way I didn’t expect.

Scallop came next, with a green onion and coriander sauce and a carrot mousse studded with herbs on the side. The scallop itself was fall-apart tender, though I found it slightly overseasoned.

Then a surprise: an off-menu course of grilled ox tongue, topped with pickled turnip slices and served in a chimichurri turnip purée. Beefy, substantial, and one of my highlights of the night. The kind of dish that lands with real confidence.

The barbecue turbot followed, with confit potatoes, tiny thin potato crisps carrying small scoops of caviar, and an oyster and caviar sauce. Rich, with a slight bitterness from the sauce that played well against the perfectly cooked fish.

The main was pigeon breast encrusted with toasted grains, alongside savoy cabbage in a pigeon jus. A confit pigeon leg arrived as accompaniment with a touch of quince on the side.

Before dessert, I was given a tour of the refreshed restaurant, including the private Armagnac room featuring bottles from the Darroze family collection.

Downstairs, I had a brief chat with the chef and discovered that, for a more intimate experience, there is a table set right inside the kitchen itself, less formal, more interactive, with the chef and the brigade working around you. Worth knowing for a future visit.

Returning to my seat, a palate cleanser arrived: bread ice cream made from leftover rye sourdough, with muscat jam and crispy toasted croutons also made from the rye. A clever full-circle moment with the earlier bread course, and the flavour worked.

Given a choice of apéritifs, I spotted a Sauternes on the list. Whenever I see a Sauternes, I know I’m ordering one.

The pre-dessert, however, was the one real miss of the night. A rhubarb and rice dish that was also brand new to the menu. Grainy, hard, and unpleasant in texture, closer to eating gravel than anything that belonged on a tasting menu.

The signature Armagnac Darroze more than made up for it. Three decades of vintages from the Darroze family collection were offered to choose from, and a small pitcher of the chosen Armagnac was poured over a green apple glazed baba and left to soak in, served alongside a green apple sorbet with diced kiwi and a touch of Chantilly cream. Divine.

A collection of petit fours followed, but by that point the jet lag had caught up with me. I asked for them to be boxed up and took them back to the hotel, where they made for an excellent breakfast the next morning.

The renovation has changed the feel of the restaurant, and the loss of the board game menu took away some of the fun I remembered from my first visit. But setting that aside, this was a confident, well-paced meal. Apart from the unfortunate pre-dessert, every course showed real thought and execution. Worth returning for a third visit.

Total damage 452 GBP/1 person.

The namesake Chef, Alain Ducasse, came into the world in 1956, in Orthez, France. Raised on a farm near Castel-Sarrazin in the Landes. He started at 16 working with many legendary chefs and moving quickly between roles and kitchens.

His career reads like a novel: apprenticeships across the south of France, a rise through Alain Chapel's brigade, two Michelin stars at La Terrasse in Juan-les-Pins by 1984, and then, that same year, a light aircraft crash in the French Alps from which he was the sole survivor. Months of surgeries and two years of rehabilitation followed before he returned to the stove. By 1987 he was in Monaco running Le Louis XV at the Hôtel de Paris, championing vegetable-forward menus that earned three stars in 1990 (the first hotel restaurant ever to receive them). The empire grew from there. By 2005, Ducasse became the first chef to hold three stars simultaneously in three cities: Monaco, Paris, and New York. His constellation peaked at twenty-one stars in 2012 and has since settled to seventeen. Beyond the restaurants (over sixty launched since the 1980s, some shuttered, others reinvented), the Ducasse universe spans cooking schools, chocolate shops, and a long shelf of books.

The kitchen at The Dorchester, though, belongs day to day to Executive Chef Jean-Philippe Blondet. Born in 1980 in Nice, Blondet grew up shopping markets with his parents and baking with his mother; he says he knew by the age of three or four that he would cook for a living. A sweet tooth pulled him first toward pastry, but he trained broadly for the wider possibilities. He interned under Jacques Chibois at the two-star La Bastide Saint-Antoine in Grasse, spent time at Sun Valley Resort with Claude Guigon, and found his formative mentor in Pascal Féraud, a Ducasse Paris corporate chef who drilled precision into every plate. Blondet joined the Ducasse group in 2004, working at Spoon at the Sanderson in London, then Le Louis XV in Monaco, followed by a brief spell in Hong Kong. He arrived at The Dorchester in 2013 as sous-chef under Jocelyn Herland, stepped up to head chef within two years, and took the top role in 2016. His cooking refines Ducasse's philosophy with a lighter, more seasonal hand, threading British ingredients through a distinctly French sensibility.

The restaurant had been reimagined since my last visit, but the sparkling private dining room, enclosed by a curtain of crystal beads, remained exactly as I remembered it.

There were two tasting menus on offer, and, naturally, I chose the seven-course option.

A classic Vesper from the bar next door arrived before the canapés, setting the tone nicely.

The canapés were then assembled at the table with quiet precision.

A warm Comté cheese beignet arrived first: crisp shell, molten centre, with funky, nutty depth.

A poached oyster wrapped in a leaf came alongside a buckwheat cracker.

The mushroom filo tart that followed was layered with paper-thin slices of raw mushroom and dusted with mushroom powder.

Baby celeriac with mustard and celery seed rounded things out, cradled in a horseradish-celery foam for a sharp hit of pungency.

While I worked through the canapés, a server was assembling the final one tableside: two thin socca chickpea crisps (a nod, perhaps, to Blondet's native Nice, where socca is the quintessential street food) sandwiching a layer of caviar and crème fraîche, topped with Malaysian black pepper and Amalfi lemon zest. Crisp, light, zesty, creamy. I wished I had a few more of these.

The bread course offered rye, focaccia, and white loaf, plus a signature pork lardon milk bread. I went with the signature, naturally. It came with curls of French butter and, taking a cue from Amber, a foamed soy milk with salt, olive oil, pepper, and buckwheat as a dairy-free alternative. The soy foam didn't do much for me; I stuck with the butter.

A hand-dived Orkney scallop arrived next, roasted and butter-basted, set in a beurre blanc and crowned with French caviar and fennel fronds. The dish was presented over dry ice, wisps of smoke curling around the plate, and is apparently one of the restaurant's longstanding signatures.

The following course came in two parts, both exploring cauliflower from every angle. First, a cauliflower soufflé, airy and golden, topped with a cauliflower velouté and shaved truffle.

Then, cauliflower slow-cooked in milk, presented in a tart with a caramelised cauliflower sauce, flanked by raw slices of cauliflower and truffle in a cauliflower purée. Light and earthy in the first expression; richer, more layered in the second.

Next, a signature that has been on the menu since the restaurant opened in 2007: lobster medallions with grilled mushrooms, chicken quenelle mousse with Périgord truffle, all bound together in a lobster bisque sauce over homemade semolina pasta.

Grilled Cornish turbot followed, served alongside beetroot and sorrel with a touch of Dorset wasabi. Sweet, pungent, and satisfyingly meaty.

Venison saddle appeared in two preparations. The first: the loin, paired with butternut squash, juniper powder, and a herbal sauce enriched with a dark jus.

The second: a slow-braised venison stew, topped with butternut squash foam. Rich, meaty and deceptively filling.

The cheese course arrived with a generous spread of accompaniments. Jet lag was hitting hard by this point, but three selections kept me awake: a forty-month-aged Comté, a bold Roquefort, and a Bergamino di Capra. I usually skip the cheese course, so I am glad I was not given the option.

A palate cleanser followed, one I have seen versions of at other restaurants but which still works every time: lemon sorbet with a bracing pour of Chartreuse, the herbal French liqueur adding a bit of bitter complexity to the dish.

Dessert felt more Bangkok than Bordeaux: thin slices of caramelised mango with passionfruit, coconut sorbet, and a granita, finished with a grating of lime zest. Not particularly French, but no less welcome for it.

In place of petit fours, a bar of chocolate to send me on my way.

I do not remember my last visit to Alain Ducasse very well. I recall it was around Christmas, mostly because I remember the Christmas crackers. This visit, though, will stay with me. The socca, caviar, and crème fraîche canapé was a standout; the multiple preparations of cauliflower were inventive; and the signature scallop dish lived up to its reputation. Worth a third return.

Total damage: 355 GBP/1 person

The kitchen has passed through several hands. Early head chefs included Dorin Schuster, who led the cooking around 2006 with a European fine-dining background. Akmal Anuar, a Singaporean who grew up around his family’s nasi padang hawker stall in Teck Whye, took over by 2011 and stayed seven years before going on to open restaurants in Dubai and Singapore (including the Michelin-starred 11 Woodfire). Masahiro Isono followed around 2015, bringing Japanese precision and a focus on seasonal ingredients. In 2016, Aitor Jeronimo Orive arrived: a Spanish-Australian chef who had trained under Andoni Luis Aduriz at Mugaritz and at Heston Blumenthal’s The Fat Duck, and whose molecular-leaning style helped earn Iggy’s its first Michelin star in the 2017 guide. The current head chef, Jake Lee, joined as chef de partie in 2017 and was appointed head chef in July 2019. Originally from Perak, Malaysia, Lee works alongside junior sous chef Cheah Seng Teng, focusing on umami-driven dishes with Japanese influences and holding on to that star. Notable alumni include Louis Han, who went on to open Nae:um, and Kenneth Lai, now at Ce Soir after stints at Iggy’s and 28 Wilkie.

The menu began as modern European fusion with Japanese touches, sourcing seasonal produce largely from Japan, and has stayed broadly in that lane while tilting toward more contemporary flavours rooted in Singapore and Southeast Asia by the 2010s. French and Italian foundations meet Asian ingredients like yuzu and bonito; vegan options were added later. The restaurant relocated from The Regent to the Hilton (now voco Orchard) in 2010, expanding from twenty-eight seats to thirty-six with an eight-seat dessert bar and a larger kitchen team. A 2016 renovation closed it for a month, refreshing both the space and the menu.

The dining room features a window into the show kitchen, where we could see the staff hard at work.

We arrived in time for a seasonal Chinese New Year set, with a traditional Singaporean prosperity toss as the opening course.

The bread came first. A dense rye sourdough with salted butter, unassuming but well made.

Then the yusheng, Iggy's take on lo hei: raw snapper with shredded vegetables (both raw and pickled), topped with crisp crackers, seaweed, crushed peanuts, and a sweet kombu soy sauce. Sweet, sour, salty, all colliding in one dish, exactly as the ritual demands.

My companion picked the wine, a 2011 red Meursault Caillerets. Lighter than I expected. The vineyard is more known for whites than reds, but it was pretty good nonetheless.

The canapés arrived in quick succession. First, Iggy's riff on chili crab, reimagined as a tart, much more restrained than Labyrinth's version. Alongside it, a fried filled doughnut.

An oyster spring roll followed, topped with celery aïoli.

The last of the set was a chicken wing stuffed with shrimp roe in a lobster bisque sauce, its preparation strikingly close to Bo Innovation’s.

What I assumed would be a fish course turned out to be something else entirely: a shard of crisp bamboo shoot topped with a quenelle of caviar, served with a sweet corn velouté dotted with shiso oil.

A risotto came next, studded with ginkgo nut, lily bulb, and bafun uni (the bright orange, creamy roe from Hokkaido's small sea urchins). Lush and full of the sea.

Whenever I see that particular skin texture on fish, I think tilefish, and tilefish it was. The fillet sat on a bed of Ibérico ham and morel mushrooms in a tangy vin jaune (the nutty, sherry-like wine from France's Jura region), finished with a sorrel leaf.

Half an Australian abalone followed, served in a concentrated chicken consommé that had been reduced to an almost syrupy intensity.

Given the choice between beef and duck, I went with the tried and true: a small piece of A5 wagyu striploin, an MB7 tenderloin, a cube of potato gratin, and a Brussels sprout. It looked modest on the plate but was extraordinarily rich, fatty, and filling.

The one dish that did not work for me was the palate cleanser: a thick caramel with corn spooned over ice. The flavour combination called to mind a country fair, but the sticky, intense caramel did little to actually clear the palate.

Finally, Iggy's take on the Singaporean pineapple tart. A square of pineapple jelly with cookie crumble and a chewy piece of dried pineapple, topped with coconut sorbet. The sorbet worked for me, but that was about it. I have never been much of a fan of Singaporean pineapple tarts to begin with.

The petit fours were citrusy madeleines, a pleasant enough send-off.

Overall, a solid meal. The tilefish was the clear highlight, and the oyster spring roll was not far behind. The rest of the menu held together well without leaving a deep impression. Worth a visit for the wine programme, the food is good, but not particularly memorable.

Total damage: $1000 SGD/2 people

The hard product is amazing, but sadly, the F&B is a bit lacking. There was a really nice freshly-made burrata mafaldine, but the food here was generally expensive and disappointing. The Sentosa take on the Singapore Sling is a lot more balanced and refreshing than the sickeningly sweet classic one at the original hotel, so that’s a bit of an improvement.

The thing to do in Singapore isn’t to eat at the hotel though - it’s to eat cheap and local.

A rich, sweet chai-like gingery Teh Halia, or a piece of crisp kaya toast dipped in some half-boiled egg.

Freshly made kueh tutu - lightly steamed rice flour cakes filled with palm sugar or a crushed peanut and sugar mix. A lot dryer and crumblier than I would’ve expected from a steamed dish.

What must be a national treasure for Singapore, the famous chili crab - sweet, sour, slightly spicy, and always served with deep-fried mantou to soak up the delicious sauce!

A slightly less famous version - the peppery black pepper crab, served picked. There are two or three go-to recipes for crab in Singapore - classic chili crab, black pepper and white pepper. Frankly, this is one where we should just stick with the classics - the sweet, tangy, slightly spicy tomato-based chili crab is still my favourite.

A dessert that looked better than it tasted, but a very topical one for Chinese New Year. Despite the look, it was actually a blueberry chessecake!

The room announces itself with a certain confidence. Deep red carpets and drapes, gold trim, carved wood detailing, large porcelain vases, and chandeliers stacked across two floors connected by a sweeping staircase. The Tang dynasty references are deliberate and committed rather than decorative shorthand, and the effect feels genuinely grand without tipping into pastiche. It looks, by most accounts, very much as it did when it first opened.

The food has been shaped by a single kitchen lineage that stretches back to day one. Chef Kwong Wai Keung joined T'ang Court when it opened, having started his career at 14 as a kitchen assistant in a Central hotel, working his way through every station and eventually running the Chinese kitchen. He stayed for over three decades, building a reputation around classic Cantonese cooking: live seafood, abalone, crab, whatever the market offered that week, all treated with strict attention to fire control and ingredient freshness. His signature three-onion stir-fried lobster, made with spring onions, red onions, and shallots finished with Shaoxing wine in a blazing wok, became one of the most recognisable dishes in Hong Kong. He retired around 2022.

His protégé, Chef Wong Chi Fai, took over the executive chef role. Wong had joined T'ang Court in 2001 as a No. 3 steamer chef and spent two decades learning directly from Kwong before stepping into the top position. The philosophy has not shifted: seasonal menus updated every month or two, tasting menus built around market availability, and the same exacting standards around sourcing and timing. Several of Kwong's signatures remain on the menu under Wong's stewardship, including the three-onion lobster and the crumbed crab shell.

We arrived late, which made the tasting menu the obvious call rather than trying to navigate the carte at that hour. It turned out to be the right decision.

The meal opened with abalone prepared typhoon shelter-style, coated in a salt and pepper crust.

Then came one of the house signatures: a crab preparation bringing together Alaska crab and local flower crab meat in a delicate cream and onion sauce, clean and precisely balanced.

A braised imperial bird's nest followed, on top of a slice of grouper, in a rich crab meat and roe long-cooked ham stock. Rich and layered in a way that feels distinctly Cantonese, the kind of dish where the depth comes entirely from patience and technique rather than any single ingredient doing the heavy lifting.

Then the fragrant three-onion lobster, and it delivered everything its reputation promises. The wok hei was present and distinctive, the three types of onion each contributing something distinct without any one of them dominating, the Shaoxing wine lifting the whole dish at the finish. A dish that has been on this menu for decades for good reason.

Sea cucumber arrived next, braised alongside abalone in a heavy oyster sauce. This is as classically Cantonese as it gets: texture-forward ingredients that absorb flavour through slow, careful braising rather than offering anything particularly assertive on their own. Slowly rehydrated over a week and slowly cooked in the oyster sauce to impart flavour while maintaining the gelatinous texture.

Wagyu beef stir-fried with two kinds of mushrooms came after, executed with the same attention to wok hei that defined the lobster course. The beef stayed tender, the mushrooms took on a bit of colour, and the wok hei did its job without overwhelming the dish.

The course that surprised me most was the one that came next: a lobster broth made from the shells of the lobster served earlier, with puffed crispy rice at the table. Audibly cracking once added to the soup, the dish was clever, satisfying, and flavourful.

A sparkling tea served as a palate cleanser before dessert arrived, which is where things became a bit less impressive.

The egg tart was a classic and a genuinely good one. The honeydew jelly was unremarkable. The final dessert, a tofu preparation layered with cream and a Biscoff crumb, was genuinely puzzling and not in an good way. I left most of it. Frankly, a simple tofu pudding would’ve sufficed, or the could’ve gone to a long repertoire of both cold and hot classic Cantonese desserts - ground bean pastes, sago puddings, mochi dumplings. The egg tart worked, the rest was terrible.

Overall, I was a bit disappointed for what should have been the “height” of Cantonese cooking in Hong Kong. Many luxurious ingredients, but it just wasn’t that memorable. Granted, great use of wok hei, but the menu just fell a bit flat. It wasn’t bad, just not much better than the many other amazing Cantonese restaurants in Hong Kong. Not really deserving of a special journey. The dessert section reads more like an afterthought than a conclusion. At the price point, probably a pass. I’ll try Forum next and see if they can do better.

Total damage: 7500 HKD/2 people

The hotel itself carries a remarkable history. It was conceived in 1865 by Daniel Nicols, a French wine merchant who had fled bankruptcy in France and arrived in Britain with his wife Célestine and just five pounds to his name. Under their stewardship, it grew into one of the city's great institutions - home to what was once considered the finest wine cellar in the world, and a magnet for the era's most luminous minds. Oscar Wilde held court here. Winston Churchill dined here. David Bowie retired his Ziggy Stardust persona here in 1973. The building was converted into a full luxury hotel between 2008 and 2012 and now forms part of The Set collection, its heritage intact beneath a sleek modern surface.

The restaurant bearing Alex Dilling's name opened within it in 2022 - his first standalone venture after a career that took him from Alain Ducasse's kitchen in New York (where he helped earn two Michelin stars at Adour) to Caviar Russe (where he secured its first star) and eventually back to London, where he maintained two stars at Hélène Darroze's restaurants for eight years and again at The Greenhouse in Mayfair, until the pandemic forced its closure. The accolades followed him here quickly: two Michelin stars arrived in 2023, a year after opening.

One thing that gives me pause at restaurants of this calibre is the supplement menu - it can feel like a shakedown at a price point where you'd expect everything significant to be included. Both of Alex Dilling's signature dishes came with an additional charge, which meant choosing just one felt almost arbitrary. I picked the Hunter Chicken on a whim, and that turned out to be the right call.

The dining room is intimate, just 34 seat, with a dark, jewel-box atmosphere and an oddly mirrored ceiling that catches the light in ways you don’t quite expect. It sits directly across Regent Street from Hawksmoor, another favourite of mine, which made the walk over feel pleasantly familiar.

The evening opened with a glass of British sparkling rosé from an Oxfordshire winery - bright, fruit-forward, with a bracing streak of acidity. A fine way to settle in.

The canapés arrived shortly after, placed on the table with an almost architectural deliberateness that would set the tone for everything to come.

First, a warm mushroom doughnut: doughy, deeply umami, satisfying in the way only something fried and filled can be.

Then a buckwheat tartlet with horseradish crème fraîche and caviar - the tangy creaminess of the horseradish cutting beautifully through the brine.

A crisp, paper-thin cracker followed, split between an oyster mousse and a shrimp tartare, offering mineral freshness and a pillowy richness in equal measure.

The final canapé was a hot venison consommé, and on a cold London night, it was exactly what you’d want: concentrated, warming, quietly luxurious.

The first proper course was aged caviar and pickled brown crab in a cauliflower purée, accompanied by buttered English muffins. It reminded me of a similar signature at Amber - a high compliment - though this version carried its own identity.

Next came a green sardine roll, wrapped in cucumber skin and served in a mint and coriander sauce. The inspiration was Vietnamese, and the effect was genuinely refreshing — herbal and clean, with the brightness of the sauce doing excellent work against the oiliness of the sardine. It called to mind a Vietnamese summer roll.

The Pâté de Campagne was a standout. Served with a freshly baked croissant, spicy honey mustard, and pickled cucumbers, it's been on the menu unchanged since the restaurant opened - and once you eat it, the reason is obvious. You assemble it yourself: dense, flavourful pâté, a swipe of sharp mustard, the crunch and sweetness of the pickles, all folded into a croissant so shattering-ly flaky it came apart in my hands the moment I touched it. Great food, and a genuinely fun dish. It also introduced a motif that never let up for the rest of the meal: an almost obsessive attention to detail in presentation. The pickles were arranged in a perfect floral pattern. The pâté was cut into flawless rectangular blocks.

The John Dory arrived next, sandwiching a squid and cuttlefish mousse between two portions of fish, the surface inlaid with an intricate pattern in squid ink, finished with a bouillabaisse sauce and a delicate saffron foam. A technique I've been seeing more frequently - Sezanne was the first place I encountered it, but executed here with characteristic finesse.

The bread course offered a selection of sourdough, rye, and the house signature: a chorizo roll so good I could barely stop myself from going for more. Soft, flaky, intensely savoury - I had two and had to physically stop myself from reaching for a third. The usual rule about not filling up on bread before dessert was sorely tested.

The BBQ monkfish demonstrated the kitchen's restraint and patience. Poached first in butter, then finished over binchotan charcoal for a whisper of smoke and caramelisation, it arrived with a red wine and monkfish bone sauce, a thick sabayon, and a scattering of Madagascar pepper. Meaty and substantial.

Then, the Hunter Chicken justifying the supplement entirely. Prepared in the style of a beef wellington: a chicken breast encased in a mushroom duxelle, wrapped in a toasted coating that sealed in the moisture, glazed with a glossy chicken jus and finished with lemon thyme. The fear with any preparation this involved is that the chicken emerges dry. It did not. It was exceptional.

Midway through the meal, I was invited into the kitchen for a brief conversation with Chef Dilling. The space reminded me of the Connaught kitchen, and he confirmed without prompting that he had indeed worked there. We talked about The Greenhouse, which I'd visited before the pandemic, and about his travels through Southeast Asia, which had clearly left a mark.

He explained that the duck breast course drew on his memories of Peking duck: the skin treated with a vinegar and sugar mixture, briefly smoked, then roasted to a fierce crispness, served with a quince and duck jus. It didn't have the papery delicacy of a traditional Peking preparation, but the skin was extraordinary, shattering on contact, and deeply flavourful.

The pre-dessert arrived as a palate reset: ruby grapefruit, a champagne grapefruit sorbet, and a creamy, airy sabayon foam. Bright and effective.

Dessert brought together chocolate ganache, sourdough ice cream topped with a rye crisp, all ringed by a mulled wine reduction. It was the one dish of the night that didn't quite land - the elements felt less integrated than elsewhere on the menu, the flavours pulling in slightly different directions.

By the time the petit fours came, the jet lag was winning. I asked for them to go. The sorbet couldn't make the journey, so I ate it at the table. The rest came home with me, where they were excellent the following morning.

Alex Dilling surprised me, and I don’t say that lightly. What this kitchen manages to pull off - course after course, night after night - requires a level of consistency that very few restaurants ever achieve. The detail in every plate isn’t incidental; it’s the point. Dilling’s background in French classical cooking is evident not in any stuffy formality, but in the discipline and rigour that runs through everything. The touristy Regent Street location may keep some people away. It kept me away for longer than it should have. Definitely worth a repeat.

Total Damage: 340 GBP/1 person

Celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck was born in 1949, in Sankt Veit an der Glan, Austria. He started cooking young, helping his mother in the kitchen, then began formal training at 14. He apprenticed in top French spots: L’Oustau de Baumanière in Provence, Hôtel de Paris in Monaco, Maxim’s in Paris. At 24 he moved to the US in 1973, first cooking at La Tour in Indianapolis for two years, then heading to Los Angeles in 1975 as chef and part-owner of Ma Maison, where he drew Hollywood crowds.

In 1981 he published his first cookbook, Modern French Cooking for the American Kitchen, based on Ma Maison dishes. The next year he opened Spago on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, blending California ingredients with European techniques and helping define California cuisine. Spago moved to Beverly Hills in 1997 and stayed a flagship.

He followed with Chinois on Main in Santa Monica in 1983 (Asian-fusion), then built out more concepts: Granita in Malibu (1991), and later CUT steakhouse in Beverly Hills (2006), which earned a Michelin star quickly and quickly spawned locations worldwide.

Chef Greg Bess runs the Singapore outpost of CUT as executive chef. He trained at Le Cordon Bleu in Pasadena, spent time as sous chef at Spago Beverly Hills, and came to Singapore right at the 2010 opening. He’s stayed in the role since, shaping the menu with a focus on premium cuts and seafood additions.

The setup follows the core Cut approach: modern American steakhouse with high-end beef from places like the US, Japan, and other sources, plus strong seafood options. It earned one Michelin star in the first Singapore Michelin Guide in 2016 and has held it every year since.

Located in the Marina Bay Sands mall, CUT sits nearby the food court beside a variety of luxury fashion stores.

There’s a bar immediately upon entrance, and I was greeted by the staff, who brought me into the main dining room.

I was greeted with a pink fir apple consommé (that tasted basically like apple cider) with a salted rim. Neat, but that’s a lot of fancy words to describe a shot of apple cider.

Some classic cheese puffs were brought out, before a variety of breads (a pretzel loaf, onion focaccia, French loaf, long parmesan-dusted breadsticks), served with French butter, and a beef tallow compound butter. The real standout here was the pretzel loaf, which was absolutely delicious, and I ended up finishing, even though I promised I’d leave room for the main event.

Asking the waiter for his recommendation, I wasn’t famished, and wanted a small, but fatty steak. He recommended the American Wagyu - less fatty than the Japanese Wagyu, but beefier in flavour. I decided to go with my favourite cut - the ribeye, and of course, done medium rare.

The next difficult choice was the sides. I knew I couldn’t order too many, but they had all the classics - mac and cheese, onion rings, potato mash, creamed spinach, brussel sprouts, fries. I ended up going with two classics - the onion rings and the creamed spinach. Thank goodness I only ordered two, because the serving sizes were massive.

The onion rings were some of the lightest, fluffy I’ve ever had, done in a Japanese tempura batter instead of a thicker cut and thicker batter I’ve often seen in other restaurants. Classic creamed spinach with a fried egg on top, absolutely delicious.

The steak was accompanied by a variety of mustards - grape and wholegrain mustards, both of which leaned a bit more sour in flavour and English/Dijon mustards that were especially pungent.

With the size of the steak and the sides, I was pretty glad I didn’t order any appetizers either. I barely managed to finish the steak and a bit of the sides.

I was pretty surprised when dessert came - I didn’t even need to order anything. A Passionfruit guava sorbet on a bed of blueberries and toasted sliced almonds. A bit of texture along with a tart and sweet sorbet.

Finally, the petit four - a chocolate truffle and a some sort of jelly. By this time I was stuffed, so unfortunately, I left them untouched on the table.

It’s often hard to compare steakhouses. Realistically, there’s only so much you can do to a steak, and the differences between high end restaurants are pretty marginal. You can work on sourcing, aging, or a unique preparation, but it can be difficult to differentiate. I wasn’t super impressed by the American wagyu, although that may be my own fault. I probably shouldn’t gotten a smaller, fattier steak. Gone with the Japanese instead of the American.

The sides were pretty killer though. I only wish they had a smaller size so I could’ve tried a few other ones. Good meal, but for the price paid, could probably find better elsewhere.

Total damage: 280 SGD/1 person

Down a hallway motif of Kyoto’s red torii gate shrine, the restaurant was a lot larger than I originally expected, with regular dining areas, as well as multiple teppanyaki grills.

A fairly plain salad to start. There was some dried marinaded seaweed in the middle that was packed with flavour.

A small bottle of sake. When we see Dassai on the menu, it’s usually a safe bet. This one was a Dassai 39, with 39% of the original rice grain left after polishing. As with many other Dassai expressions, very fruity, floral and sweet.

Some smoked duck breast as an appetizer.

Off menu, we decided to get an geoduck, and have it served two ways. First, made into nigiri.

Secondly, cooked on the grill with a little butter, lemon juice and salt. Absolutely amazing and my only wish is that we tried some of the other fresh seafood they had.

The scallop appetizer, prepared on the grill similarly to the geoduck. I realized partway through that the salt, pepper, lemon juice and butter preparation is the same for nearly all the seafood they do - I just usually don’t get enough varieties of seafood to notice.

Our mains - A wagyu steak and butterflied chicken thigh.

As only proper, the steak was served with fried garlic chips.

A very western style fried rice, but absolutely delicious. Served with the classic miso soup, and some Japanese pickles.

My companion went with the fried noodles. Again, very western in appearance.

Finally, a scoop of matcha ice cream for dessert.

Overall, decent. We weren’t expecting a fine dining experience at the price point. We just wanted some last minute teppanyaki. It was very much lifting a Benihana from anywhere in middle America, and transplanting it to Hong Kong. They could do all the tricks, make all the recipes, but everything felt very “Americanized”. That said, who cares. A decent meal nonetheless.

Total damage: 3200 HKD/2 people

Early on, Chef Masakazu Ishibashi served as executive head chef for the original Ginza location, earning its first Michelin star, as well as presiding over the chain’s expansion over the past decade. Masakazu Ishibashi started in his family’s sushi restaurant in Tochigi Prefecture as a kid, handling basics from around age 10. He spent about five years in the US after university, training and working at several sushi restaurants there.

Back in Tokyo, he joined Ginza Sushi Ichi as executive chef, where the main Ginza location earned a Michelin star. As executive chef for Ginza Sushi Ichi, he worked across or led branches in Tokyo (Ginza flagship), Singapore (helped it toward stars before his shift), Jakarta, and Bangkok. In 2016 he moved to Singapore to head Shoukouwa (initially tied to Sushi Ichi concepts), earning two Michelin stars shortly after opening.

Today, Chef Takeshi Kawakami leads as executive chef at the Singapore Sushi Ginza Ichi, with Shuki Yoshiaki as head sushi chef. Yoshiaki built a following in Singapore and Jakarta through his hands-on approach at the counter, driven by a straightforward passion for fresh sushi.

The menu has stayed rooted in seasonal Edomae omakase, with rice vinegars and sauces shipped from Tokyo for consistency. Ownership remains tied to the Tokyo parent and the Singapore location holds steady as a 23-seat spot focused on counter service.

The restaurant has gained and lost Michelin stars over the years, rarely keeping its star for more than one or two years. Most recently, it gained a single star again in the 2025 Michelin guide.

We arrived pretty late at night, and dinner service was already well underway. Two chefs working at the counter, each covering half the counter.

We quickly decided to go with the omakase and let the chef decide what to serve us.

Dinner began with a selection of appetizers:

• two tender pieces of octopus simmered in a soy mirin marinade

• tempura vegetable shoot, served with half a kumquat

• crabmeat embedded within an aspic jelly, topped with caviar

• tender spinach with a miso dressing on top

Catching up an old friend, we decided to crack open a bottle of Dassai 23. A heavily polished sake - down to 23% of the original rice grain, hence the name. Sweet, floral and fruity, its sits very far along the sweet side of the sweet-dry spectrum.

As we started aggressively attacking the bottle of sake, the chef prepared the sashimi course, slices of grilled arctic clam, chutoro, and flounder, served with freshly grated wasabi and a bit of pickled ginger.

The next appetizer was a piece of hearty grilled butterfish, served with a bit of grated radish and slice of yuzu to be squeezed on top. I’m always really careful about eating butterfish or escolar, as buildup of wax esters in the flesh can create undesirable gastrointestinal effects. Flavour and texture-wise though, the fish was great - a bit of char along one side, hearty, meaty and firm fleshed.

The first piece of nigiri was a leather jacket or kawahagi, known for its tough, leather-like skin. Firm, mildly sweet, and served with a piece of its creamy liver and shredded scallion on top.

Blackthroat Seaperch or modoguro came next. Buttery, rich and fatty, this deep sea fish was a huge hit.

The classic shrimp (ebi) nigiri, classically prepared. Not much to say about this one. Well executed, but otherwise, uneventful.

Differing from a lot of omakase preparations that are very regimented - appetizers, main course nigiri in a very specific order, handroll, miso soup, dessert, the meal at Sushi Ichi was a lot more free flowing, with pieces of nigiri mixed in between other appetizers. I quite enjoyed this as it gave a variety of flavours across the different courses, versus strictly regimented nigiri across multiple courses following a great variety of appetizers.

Another classic omakase dish, an extremely tender abalone, served with a rich, complex abalone liver sauce, with a small ball of rice to mop up the rest of the sauce. Always a hit, and absolutely amazing!

Picked crab leg meat, topped with a concentrated bonito broth jelly, topped with gold flake and perilla blossoms.

The lean tuna or akami, glistening with a light coating of soy.

Kamatoro, that I learned about recently at Tuna Fight Club, a piece of fatty tuna from the collar that is even richer than the famous otoro. Lightly seared with binchotan charcoal and fat just starting to melt off the flesh. Savoury, amazing mouthfeel and one of the highlights of the night!

Crab rice, served in the shell and topped with uni and salmon roe, served alongside a thimble of miso soup, usually signifying the end of the savoury courses. If the meal ended here, I would’ve been perfectly satisfied.

Alas, we were not done!

A piece of grilled eel nigiri, moving us toward the sweet end of the palate and toward dessert. I think this was the lighter and fluffier anago saltwater conger eel. Finished on the grill and served with a light coating of sticky sweet, kabayaki sauce, always a big hit.

Finally, some minced tuna rolls, mixed in with some sweet Japanese pickles and leeks, as well as the classic egg castella. Now, signifying the end of the savoury courses!

Finally, dessert, A variety of Japanese fruits - muskmelon, pomelo, Japanese snow pears, alongside a crisp rice cracker willed with red bean paste and vanilla ice cream.

Overall, I’ve found high end Japanese in Singapore to almost always be a hit. Sister restaurant Shoukouwa was one of the best omakase counters I’ve ever been to, and Sakuta was amazing as well. I’d rank Sushi Ichi a close third behind Sakuta, but I’ve found sushi in Singapore to consistently perform above expectations.

Total damage: 1700 SGD/2 people

By day, the space is called “Supermarket of Dreams”. By night, it transform into part show kitchen, part communal tables and a shrine to the temple of bluefin tuna. A massive tuna is flown in from Spain, wheeled in at the beginning of the night, and broken down in front of us into a multi-course tuna omakase menu.

The menu for the night, with nearly every dish highlighting the tuna - either freshly carved from the tuna in front of us, or dry aged from last week’s tuna.

A clear, but flavourful soup with a small piece of tender aubergine, and a “fatty square” of tuna meat. Traditionally made with pork belly, they modified the recipe to use a fatty piece of tuna belly instead. Topped with a bit of sudachi juice squeezed over the top, adding acid and a bit of brightness to the flavours.

At this point the MC started explaining what would happen next and how the night would work.

The massive 200 kg tuna being wheeled in from the front.

A new cut that I learned about that night, the kamatoro, a rare piece of tuna even fattier than the otoro, cut from collar of the tuna.

Once the loins were removed, the remaining meat off the ribs was scraped off and prepared for the first dish.

Dinner began with a lineup to pick up a piece of nori, over which they would put a on the fresh tuna mince freshly scraped off the ribs, a light brushing of soy sauce, and a generous heap of N25 caviar out of the massive kilogram container.

For contrast to the fresh tuna, the second handroll was made using tuna that was dry-aged for nine days. Funkier and more condensed in flavour, I definitely preferred the dry aged one more.

Returning to our tables, we were presented with thin slices of chutoro sashimi, each slice with either kumquat, blood orange or wasabi.

Salad made with a leaner cut of tuna, artichoke, crushed pistachio on a bed of mixed vegetables.

The next course was off menu, and they presented a steamed egg custard, with mixed seafood, topped with a dollop of caviar.

The first time I’ve ever had a tuna tempura, but cuts of the medium fatty chutoro, thinly battered and served in a thickened sweet sauce.

Next, a sashimi from the incredibly fatty kamatoro they were cutting from the tuna collar earlier. Topped with a variety of garnishes - mango kimizu, an hollandaise-like sauce, the same caviar from the massive container, perilla blossoms and finger lime. A fatty fat bomb with a bit of sour and brininess from the garnishes.

The next dish was some seared fatty tuna belly, served with some oyster mushrooms, and white truffle shavings on top. The fattier the cut, the more I prefer some degree of searing or cooking. Adds a bit of warmth, juiciness and mouthfeel to what otherwise would be a giant fat bomb.

Three nigiri made from different cuts of tuna. From the left to the right

• The medium fatty chutoro, served with a slice of lime and some wasabi oil

• The lean akami with a bit of white ginger

• The extremely fatty kamatoro nigiri, slightly seared, and topped with caviar

A final dish of a genmai chazuke, or cooked rice served in brown rice green tea. A bit of jabara (a Japanese citrus similar to lemon) to bring out the flavour, monk’s beard and a slice of the chutoro.

Dessert was a vanilla ice cream mixed with shio koji, adding a bit of saltiness and umami to the ice cream, with slices of various winter citrus fruits.

Well-Balanced and delicate, this was not. This was more of a celebration of tuna - pack on the best, fattiest cuts of the tuna, heap on a dollop of caviar, and use it for absolutely every dish, even where it didn’t make a lot of sense.

I’ve never really been a fan of Japanese cuisine in the UK. Perhaps I’m spoiled from spending so much time in Asia, but I’ve always found Japanese food in London to be pretty poor. This, while a fun night, was not the exception. It was a great experience, worth doing once, but do it for the experience, not necessarily the food.

Finally, the wait for the tuna to arrive can take a long time, so don’t make the mistake of finishing a bottle of sake before the tuna arrives. The rest of the night will be significantly more hazy and less enjoyable.

Total Damage 600 GBP/2 people

Shutov aimed for accessible glamour, capping wine markups at £75 no matter the bottle’s price, which shook up London’s scene at the time. The place quickly gained fame for its “Press for Champagne” buttons at every table, letting diners summon bubbles instantly—they claim to pour more champagne than any other UK restaurant.

The champagne buttons turned into a cultural thing—people visit just to hit them, and it’s become a go-to for celebrations or Instagram moments. On the food side, the menu mixes French and British comforts with Russian touches: start with caviar on blinis or oysters, then move to chicken Kyiv stuffed with garlic butter, beef Wellington carved tableside, or lobster mac and cheese. Desserts like boozy chocolate truffles or flaming crème brûlée often close the deal.

The basement space feels a bit 80s disco mixed with Russian opulence. A place that wouldn’t feel out of place at as a setpiece in A Night in the Roxbury.

I didn’t manage to do a full writeup of this one - several rounds of champagne martinis, and at least five rounds of ice-chilled vodka shots later, I didn’t manage to write down much about the night. We made liberal use of the champagne button though, the main reason we were here.

The iconic “Press for Champagne” button.

A few champagne martinis to start the night.

If in Russia, do as the locals do. What’s a tin of caviar among friends?

Moving from Russian to British, one of the signature dishes at Bob Bob Ricard, the beef wellington. Perfectly done, with a pink center. I’d rank it slightly behind the beef wellington at The Ritz and The Savoy Grill, but pretty good execution nonetheless.

A rich and creamy fish pie,

Adding to the luxury and opulence, a lobster tail mac and cheese as a side.

Frankly, the food was a bit of an afterthought. Having a catchup with old friends late into the night, everything tasted good. I don’t think we even managed to touch the mac the cheese - it was pretty much a tin of caviar, many shots of ice-chilled vodka, celebrating in the most Russian style. We were handed a “friends of bob” card at the end - apparently, our drunken revelry wasn’t enough for them to bar us from future visits.

Total damage: 800 GBP/3 people.

Gaddi’s opened in 1953 at The Peninsula Hong Kong, named after former general manager Leo Gaddi. It started as a high-society spot for French cuisine and has held onto that status, earning a Michelin star along the way. The dining room keeps its original chandeliers from the Paris Opera House and wood panels from a Shanghai mansion, seating about 50 people in a formal setup.

Anne-Sophie Nicolas became chef de cuisine in September 2024, the first woman in the role after 70 years. Born in Clermont-Ferrand, France, she trained in classic French techniques. Her career includes stints at Bistrot Là-Haut, Espadon at the Ritz Paris, Le Meurice, L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon Étoile, Restaurant Guy Savoy, and La Dame de Pic in Singapore, where she opened the spot in 2019 and earned a Michelin star. Most recently, she led the kitchen at L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon in Hong Kong.

In May 2024, she became chef de cuisine at Gaddi’s in The Peninsula Hong Kong. The restaurant holds one Michelin star, five years running. She took over from Chef Albin Gobil and updated the menu with lighter French plates while keeping classics around, like canard à la presse with black garlic.

The space itself is very old school, a bit dated, but very elegant, reflecting on both the history of the restaurant and the hotel.

Live band playing throughout the night, serenading us with hits across multiple decades.

A glass of Bollinger to start the night.

The canapes arrived before the menu, a beetroot and horseradish tart, and a neat avocado spring roll.

Some light cheese puffs to snack on while we were inspecting the menu.

Gaddi was running a unique dinner menu, with caviar featured in every course. Well, that sounded interesting, and we decided to try it.

The bread course came first, with a beautiful crusty sourdough loaf, and an assortment of buns to choose from, including a savory onion and bacon jam roll. The bread was served with two styles of butter, a smooth salted butter, and a spicy espelette pepper butter formed into a pyramid

The final canape was a potato salad with a watercress puree topped with potato crisps and a poached quail egg and a scoop of caviar. Herbal, refreshing, with tiny sorrel leaves and a wide variety of textures mixing together.

The first dish was a Hokkaido scallop served with a light crisp tart with a layer of caviar and lemon cream. Tangy, tender and a huge hit!

Next came the Boston lobster, with tiny turnip balls topped with caviar and gold flake, a lobster bisque sauce, Asian snow pear puree and artichoke crisps.

Rounding off the appetizers, the Turbot with a champagne caviar sauce, curry cauliflower and abalone accompaniment and an artichoke puree topped with caviar.

I went with the lamb, and was presented with multiple preparations, a boneless medallion from the saddle, a rack rib, a confit tomato stuffed with minced lamb and the heart and liver wrapped with ha chard leaf, with a generous scoop of caviar in the middle and slices of razor clam adorning different parts of the dish.

My companion, who doesn’t eat lamb, had a beef tenderloin as a substitute instead. Served with a crispy potato spring roll, mushrooms and a bearnaise sauce. The highlight of the dish was the potato spring roll. The rest was good, but they manage to pack a huge amount of audible crunch into that spring roll.

For pre-dessert a vanilla custard, with salted caramel chips, on a bed of caramel sauce, topped with a bit of caviar and gold flake.

Finally, a really unique dessert, highlighting the theme of the menu. What appeared to be a tin of caviar on ice, was actually a chocolate and praline mousse topped with caviar and shaped into a tin. The ice was an almond jelly. Together, it was a fun and whimsical dessert!

Overall, this was a really fun night. The staff carefully tried to teach us the difference between different styles and preparations of caviar and what to look for, and the Chef Anne came out to chat with us a bit later in the night. The quality of the execution was quite good, although there were no standout “this is amazing” dish that I would recommend anyone that comes here to try. Would return, maybe to try the normal menu.

Total damage: 12k HKD/2 people