Diner’s DiaryFour Seasons Hong Kong welcomes new executive chef

The Four Seasons Hong Kong has a new executive chef, Andrea Accordi hailing from Nogara in the province of Verona, Italy. It’s a homecoming of sorts for him – about 20 years ago he worked in Hong Kong, including a brief stint learning how to cook Chinese food at The Peninsula Hong Kong.

Accordi was previously in Prague, Florence, St Petersburg, St Moritz and London as well as Phuket and Bangkok.

The amiable chef has begun revamping the menu at The Lounge, giving it a more Italian focus, and making it lighter on the stomach. There may be more fresh pasta items in the near future.

The Lounge currently has a promotion until mid-July featuring Australian black truffles and we were invited to try some dishes Accordi recommended.

For starters the crispy vegetable salad (HK$320) is an artistic presentation of avocado, asparagus, artichoke hearts, carrots and radish, accompanied with a small tomato that is filled with white tomato foam, and decorated with thin slices of Parmesan and aromatic black truffle in a shallow bowl of chilled tomato consommé.

Another appetiser worth sampling is the grilled Hokkaido scallops (HK$450). The plate was again beautifully decorated, with the naturally sweet scallops and a thin slice of black truffle on top, accompanied with mushrooms, greens and buttermilk and lettuce sauce.

One of Accord’s signature dishes is his sweetbread ravioli (HK$480). Each house-made ravioli looked like a flower, stuffed with beef heart, and decorated with chunks of sweet langoustine, together with tomato and black truffle slices, and smoked eggplant purée.