7/F, 31 Hollywood Road, Central
Tel: 2544 3433
Open: Monday-Saturday 7pm-midnight
Cuisine: international, with a set menu that changes monthly
Price: HK$620 without drinks. There's no service charge.
Ambience: the open kitchen is basically the only focus of the room. Solo diners can sit at the counter around the kitchen, and there are tables and chairs for groups, including out on the terrace, which will be lovely when the weather is cool and dry. The atmosphere is convivial, with the chef coming out for every course to explain the dishes.
Pros: although there's no ? la carte selection, only a set menu, the chef will adapt dishes to accommodate a diner's food allergies.
Cons: it's booked out months in advance (until the end of the year). You can try your luck by calling the day you want to eat there in case there's a cancellation. The only dish we found slightly disappointing was the lime-marinated wagyu flank steak; while there was nothing really wrong with the dish, it paled in comparison with what we were served before and after.
Recommended dishes: until the end of the month, the menu is based on the Latino food that chef Que Vinh Dang ate when he was growing up in New York. The meal started with an amuse bouche of house-cured corned beef dressed with a refreshing salsa. Dang's signature course of soup and sandwich was, on this occasion, sweetcorn soup with paprika popcorn, and a juicy chipotle pork belly sandwich with Oaxaca cheese, which we liked so much we wanted a second. I loved the comfort food dish of tender tomato rice with black beans and moist, shredded ancho chilli pepper spring chicken, topped with batons of jicama. Dang's skills as a pastry chef were apparent in the two desserts. I'd count the banana flan with fresh shaved coconut, served atop a peanut butter cookie, as one of my favourite desserts this year. A pina colada ice cream sandwich - coconut ice cream with pineapple rum compote sandwiched between two macarons - was lighter, and ended the meal nicely.
What else? There's a HK$200 corkage fee on BYO wine.