Gaddi's
Historical French Restaurant inside the Dame of the East in Hong Kong
A great way to start the year, with a special menu at a French culinary classic in Hong Kong.
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