Nestled in the basement of Jardine House, Pier One is in an enviable position come week-day lunch-times. A stone's throw from Central's financial district, with its expense accounts as high as the skyscrapers surrounding it and a clientele as hungry for a decent lunch as they are for power, a restaurant such as Pier One ought to be an established institution for eat-meets.
It should be on a par with Bentley's or the Mandarin's Chinnery Bar. But it fails miserably.
The restaurant's first mistake hits you as you walk in the door. Shivering timbers, storm lanterns and a full-size model of Long John Silver can do little to attract the serious business lunchers.
And even its naff retro-nautical theme is not consistent. I cannot recall ever seeing television screens playing 1990s pop videos in Mutiny on the Bounty.
Elsewhere, swashbuckling prints of Errol Flynn and copies of advertisements urging 19th century English spinsters to emigrate to Australia do little for the ambience or authenticity of the place.
However, a rainy day is a great compromiser where lunchtime appetites are concerned, and on the day we visited many of the tables were occupied by business types. They rubbed shoulders with damp, anoraked tourists who had probably wandered in from the Hong Kong tourist information office next door.
Pier One's menu is a mix of soups, salads, pastas, fish, grills and Asian dishes. To start with we ordered soup of the day, a tasty chicken and leek ($43) which was thin and brothy as opposed to the more usual creamy variety, the sort of soup perfect for convalescing on.
