At Hong Kong traditional Italian restaurant Sabatini’s new IFC branch, head chef Marco Antonio Li Voti will make things ‘a little bit different’

Claudio Favero, chef de cuisine of Sabatini’s in Hong Kong’s Tsim Sha Tsui neighbourhood, was having some difficulty looking for the right chef to take charge of the new branch of the famed Italian restaurant in the city’s Central neighbourhood. “We were looking for an Italian chef and had interviews with some candidates,” he says. “They were not great.” With over 30 years of history, Sabatini’s is one of Hong Kong’s oldest and most beloved institutions for traditional Italian fine dining. For Favero to entrust this legacy to someone at a new branch of the restaurant was not easy. “Sabatini’s is a classic restaurant and a safe place for a chef if you want to do traditional Italian dishes,” Favero says. It was then that Favero turned to Marco Antonio Li Voti – a 33-year-old chef with a diverse culinary portfolio – to be chef de cuisine of the new restaurant. Those who dined at Rosita, a modern Latin-American restaurant in Wan Chai that’s now closed, might recognise Li Voti as the tall, young chef behind the counter. Before that he was working for Hong Kong’s most esteemed Italian chef, Umberto Bombana, at Octavium in Central; and before that, he started his own dessert business, Holy Cannoli, which supplies custom-made cannoli desserts to restaurants around Hong Kong, and also created the menu for the now-closed Korean cafe Ppalli Ppalli, in Sham Shui Po. Perhaps what sealed the deal is the fact that Li Voti comes from a family of restaurateurs based in Vicenza, in the northeastern Veneto region of Italy. His father owned a traditional Italian restaurant there. “It was a busy time growing up in a restaurant,” Li Voti says. “We didn’t have a babysitter so me and my brother would hang out at the restaurant after school, and the staff would help to take care of us. They would give us pizza dough to play with.” We are trying to keep the style of our restaurant in The Royal Garden But we are in 2023, so we will experiment Claudio Favero, head chef of Sabatini’s, Tsim Sha Tsui Growing up, Li Voti helped out in the family business during summer holidays. One particular incident during this time sparked his desire to become a chef. “One day, the chef showed up totally drunk and wasn’t able to work,” Li Voti says. “I knew we had to start prepping for service, which was in two hours, so I called my mum and she gave me instructions on what to do. And I started prepping the lasagne and things like that. “By the time my dad arrived, he found things were ready and was quite proud of me. It was the first time he said bravo to me. I wasn’t a genius at school, so I got a lot of satisfaction from taking action and helping out.” Favero believes that Li Voti – who worked alongside him at the Tsim Sha Tsui restaurant in the lead-up to the Central branch’s launch – is a good fit for the new Sabatini’s. “He is quite the creative,” Favero says. “Maybe he doesn’t have a lot of experience in a traditional Italian restaurant, but I saw he has passion.” The new setting, too, is reflective of a changing of the guard. While the interior of Sabatini’s in Tsim Sha Tsui was recreated to emulate its Roman sister restaurant – the lampshades, chairs, handcrafted vases and tiles were bought from the same suppliers in Italy – the Central venue has a new vibe. While elements of the original interior, such as the dramatic arches and wrought iron finishes, are prominent, the floor-to-ceiling windows (with spectacular views of Victoria Harbour) and high ceilings lend an air of modernity. A mainstay of Sabatini’s is its live music, which can be expected at the new venue every Tuesday to Saturday from 7.30pm to 10.30pm. The new location and chef will give a bit of wiggle room for innovation on the plates, even if Sabatini’s is a traditional brand. A convert to Italian food on her favourite places in Hong Kong to eat it “The IFC branch is a little bit different but we are trying to keep the style of our restaurant in The Royal Garden [the 5-star hotel in which the Tsim Sha Tsui branch is located],” Favero says. “Marco will still make the Milanese ossobuco and the linguine with seafood in the traditional way Sabatini’s has been serving it for 31 years. “But we are in 2023, the design is different at IFC and we have a lot more natural light. The crowd is a bit different here so we will experiment to see what works. We will have about 20 per cent of new items by Marco in a few months. So we’ll see.”