New restaurants in Hong Kong: great British dishes, patchy service at Statement in Central
- Statement serves modern British cuisine, and apart from a few errors, the food is delicious
- The newly opened restaurant needs to work on its service
Overheard at Statement, the modern British restaurant that was opened recently by the Aqua Group in the Tai Kwun complex in Central: a man expressing surprise at how British cuisine has changed, and that it’s no longer stodgy and dull. We wondered where he’s been for the past 20 years, because British cuisine hasn’t been like that for quite a while (although it can be, if you like that sort of thing).
Statement is airy, attractive and elegant.
Service was a bit slow – it took quite a while for someone to come over and take our order, even though we had closed our menus to indicate that we were ready, and later on, although we put our forks and knives in the correct position to show we were finished with our dishes, the staff asked us each time if we were done. Most of the time they placed the food on the table without saying a word.
There’s a seven-course tasting menu for HK$928 per person, but we ordered à la carte from the brief list of six starters and six mains, plus a few sides. The starters sounded more interesting than the mains, so we ordered three and just one main.
