New restaurant in Wan Chai: Francis serves Middle Eastern food with charm and enthusiasm

There's been a lot of buzz around Francis, the new Israeli/Middle Eastern restaurant on St Francis Street in Wan Chai. Foodie friends have been posting their photos on various social media sites. The restaurant, which is open all day, doesn’t take bookings, so I arrived at 6pm to make sure I wouldn't have to queue. Soon after 7pm, the restaurant was packed and by the time we left at around 8.30pm, people were lining up outside.

There are only a few tables and they’re reserved for larger groups, so my friend and I were offered communal seats by the entrance or along the bar. We chose the bar and discussed with another friend (who happened to be eating there that night) how rare bar dining is in Hong Kong, and how enjoyable it can be if the staff – in this case, the manager and bartender – have the right personalities. They did – they were affable and knowledgeable, and talked about the food and cocktails with enthusiasm.

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The menu is brief – just 10 mezze, four vegetables, four “more” dishes (slightly larger than mezze) and two desserts.

Veal cigars (HK$120) were the weakest of the dishes, oddly because they were too meaty (some people wouldn’t complain about that, though), which made them heavy and one-dimensional.

The falafel with tahini (HK$50) were also dense but they were made with fava beans, rather than chickpeas, and they had a slight bitterness that made them interesting.

They went deliciously with our favourite mezze of the night: burnt aubergine (HK$70). The refreshing dish was composed of chopped aubergine mixed with peppers and chilli, and had a nice amount of acidity from the addition of yogurt.

Cured Japanese sardines (HK$120) were delicious: the meaty fish fillets came on a tiny piece of toast with pickled onion, although we couldn’t really detect the listed ’nduja.