Mediterranean steamed mussels. Photo: Franke Tsang
Source:
https://scmp.com/lifestyle/food-drink/article/1860667/restaurant-review-castello-4s-confused-theme-saved-delicious Food & Drink
Restaurant review: Castello 4's confused theme saved by delicious Mediterranean dishes
Mistake on bill, oversized bar and tinted wine glasses all minor annoyances
Interior of Castello 4. Photo: Franke Tsang
Castello 4 appears more a bar than a restaurant, and we came close to walking out. The food saved the evening.
Cuisine: Mediterranean
Price: about HK$400 without drinks or the service charge
Ambience: strange. Although the menu was quite extensive and ambitious, it seems more like a bar with food than a restaurant. About 9pm, the lights suddenly were turned way down, and about half an hour later, large groups of drinkers started coming in.
Recommended dishes: the mussels in a dish of steamed mussels with Spanish chorizo and tomato broth (HK$124) were larger than would be ideal, so their texture was coarse, but we liked the sauce.
Pasta di mari – assorted seafood with squid-ink pasta and beurre blanc sauce (HK$164) featured succulent mi cuit scallop, a head-on fresh prawn and bits of octopus tentacle. We couldn’t detect the beurre blanc – the sauce was more of a tomato concassé – but the flavour was good.
Seafood on squid ink pasta. Photo: Franke Tsang
Braised beef short rib (HK$284) was wonderfully tender, and served with delicious garlic mashed potato and a ratatouille that had too much tomato paste.
Braised beef rib at Castello 4. Photo: Franke Tsang
Pros: we had reservations about the place – the bar in the centre of the room was too large, they tried to give us a terrible table, and we were close to walking out, but the food was better than expected.
Interior of Castello 4. Photo: Franke Tsang
Cons: when I checked the bill when I got home, I saw we were charged for two glasses of wine, although my guest had only one. And the bill made it hard to see if the service charge had been added; I left a large tip, thinking we weren’t charged for service, but when I added up the items, I saw that we had been charged. The wine glasses are tinted, which will annoy oenophiles who like to examine the wine they’re drinking. The prosciutto di Parma pizza (HK$154) was described as New-York style, but it wasn’t; the crust was cracker-like. The Parma ham was good quality, but sliced too thick, the rocket on top had a too-sweet dressing, and the tomato sauce was more like a tomato paste, and was therefore too intense.
What else? They have a very interesting selection of whiskies, including from Japan and Taiwan.
Castello 4, 4/F Oliv, 15 Sharp Street East, Causeway Bay, tel: 2944 2299