MARROW
An East-meets-West popup in Hong Kong
MARROW is a short-run Wan Chai pop-up from chef Chris Ma, upstairs at The Baker & The Bottleman in Lee Tung Avenue. The basic idea is a modern grill room, but not necessarily a conventional steakhouse. The better way to read it is as a Hong Kong chef taking fine-dining technique, local flavour references, and less obvious cuts of meat, then putting them into a more casual format.
The room fits the concept. The Baker & The Bottleman sits in the more polished, gentrified part of Wan Chai, surrounded by new restaurants and high-rise apartments.
MARROW takes over the upstairs space. It is dimly lit, intimate, and small, with a few tables around a bar-height centrepiece. More neighbourhood grill than luxury steakhouse.
Chef Chris Ma is the reason the pop-up is more interesting than another expensive meat concept. His background runs through serious kitchens: Cepage, Amber, NUR, Fish School, and TATE Dining Room. Fish School is probably the most useful reference point, since that restaurant was built around local fish, Hong Kong flavours, and daily sourcing. MARROW swaps seafood-first cooking for fire, meat, and odd cuts, but it keeps the same instinct.
The menu backs that up. The flavour language is very Hong Kong and regional: typhoon shelter crumbs, Sichuan seasoning, salted egg, Shaoxing wine, salted plum, fermented soy bean, and Taiwanese Magao pepper.
The Sichuan steak tartare was the strongest starter. It took a classic steak tartare and added a clean mala edge without turning the dish into a gimmick. Instead of toast, they served it with puffed beef tendon. Good execution, and very similar in spirit to the bone and flesh dish I remember from 1887.
The namesake dish was less successful. The Typhoon Shelter roasted bone marrow came as two pieces of bone marrow topped with fried garlic and spices. It should have been the dish that explained the whole restaurant: a Western grill-room object treated with a Hong Kong seafood-stall flavour profile. In practice, the fried garlic mix overpowered the marrow. Not a disaster, but disappointing given that this is the dish the restaurant is named after.
The blue crab rigatoni was cooked properly. The pasta was right, the sauce worked, and the crab was generous enough. The only miss was temperature. The picked crab felt like it had come straight from the fridge. Warming it first would have made a big difference.
Overall, pretty good for a brand-new pop-up. I was disappointed by the bone marrow, especially because it should be the signature dish, but the tartare, rigatoni, and chuck eye made up for it. Worth returning.
Total damage: HKD 1,350/2 people