Le Reve - Japanese ingredients and French fusion cooking

http://www.lereve.com.hk

Fusion is a term that's going out of fashion if you listen to some chefs, it's a term that's reluctantly used to describe the blending of cuisines. Others wear the term with pride, looking to purposefully blend cultures, cuisines and ingredients, constantly challenging themselves to come up with something new, something indescribable, something totally delicious.

You might not hear rising Japanese chef Ryogo Ozawa specifically use the term fusion anywhere, but the technically brilliant chef has perfected the art of blending traditional Japanese ingredients with innovative French cooking, a blending that he calls French cuisine, new style.  Having worked at three Michelin starred L'Assiette Champenoise in Reims, Chef Ozawa has created a menu that is both technically brilliant, visually stunning and most importantly, wonderful to consume.

Le Reve has only been open for a few months, but the contemporary French restaurant is the culmination of five friends' vision and dreams.  The five friends were all students in the UK, traveling the continent and consuming all of the delights that Europe has to offer, when the idea of one day opening their own restaurant.

Oh how those boys must feel now that Le Reve is open.

Paris - Pierre Gagnaire

http://www.pierre-gagnaire.com/en#/

When I was planning my trip to Paris, I had many possible restaurants that I could have visited.  Paris is one of those destinations that every foodie dreams about, where nouveau and haute cuisine mix willingly with the most traditional of dining.  

While my trip to the French capital was centred around my trip to Guy Savoy (see post here), I was also equally excited to be visiting fellow Three Michelin star and #16 on the La Liste (the top 1,000 restaurants globally).  I was so excited about the visit, that as soon as I'd confirmed my reservation at the well known restaurant at 6 rue Balzac, just of the Champs Elysees, I made a beeline to check out the Two Michelin starred Pierre Hong Kong (see post here).

Known as an innovator, Pierre Gagnaire has been known to 'tear at the conventions of French cooking by introducing jarring juxtapositions of flavours, tastes, textures and ingredients'.  As a food blogger, I love the concept of pushing the boundaries of flavour, I love that there are chef's that are willing to test themselves and innovate and dare to dream of a different culinary landscape.

Unfortunately, dining at Pierre Gagnaire in Paris turned out to be much more of a nightmare than a dream!

Let me start by saying that like the famous French chef's predilection for juxtaposition of food, our dining experience was indeed a juxtaposition, but just not in the way that the chef intended.

Paris - Guy Savoy

https://www.guysavoy.com/en/

It might sound a little indulgent but my recent short break to Paris was completely planned around visiting one restaurant - Guy Savoy.

Well, it's not unusual for a food blogger to plan their holidays around food, after all, I was chasing another Hong Kong food blogger around Paris for the week I was there (we'll meet up sometime Bianca!).  While it might seem natural for me to visit Paris, given my favourite cuisine is French, I'd actually been targeting another of the world's top restaurants, Massimo Bottura's Osteria Francescana, clearly the best Italian restaurant globally.  Boy is that place hard to get into, I couldn't even score a reservation three months out!

Thankfully, my second choice was available and I was able to secure a mid week sitting for Restaurant Guy Savoy, which in 2015 was voted as the number four restaurant in the world by La Liste.  If you're not aware of La Liste, it's France's alternative to the San Pellegrino top 50 restaurants and is sponsored by the French Government and takes a slightly more analytical view to ranking restaurants.  Using more than 200 food guides, review sites, gourmet blogs and major news publications on 48 countries, the list compiles a weighted aggregate score and then ranks the top 1,000 'Most Outstanding Restaurants'

Needless to say, I was pretty excited.

I won't bore you with details about how we got to Paris, but I will take a moment to reflect on how beautiful a city the heart of Paris is, simply breathtaking.  The buildings haven't changed in hundreds of years, and it's easy to imagine a time before motor vehicles, where horse and carriage were the only mode of transportation around the large and sprawling city.

Restaurant Guy Savoy is located in such a majestic building on the left bank of the River Seine, with nary a sign in sight confirming that our taxi had dropped us off at the right spot.  It wasn't until we were a little closer that we noticed the discreet sign letting us know we'd arrived at our destination.  Walking up a marble staircase, we came across a gilded door that was the entrance to culinary heaven.  

Robuchon au Dome - Macau's finest?

http://www.grandlisboahotel.com/dining-Robuchon_au_Dome-en

Riding up the lift to the 39th floor at the Grand Lisboa in Macau, I was able to reflect back on the journey that had us about to visit one of the world's great restaurants.

We were heading to Macau for the very specific purpose of seeing Russell Peters live in concert, perhaps one of the funniest comedians on the planet at the moment.  Our second trip to Macau in twelve months, we didn't need to do the sight seeing thing, our plan was to laugh, relax and lounge by the pool of our hotel.  Of course there was never any doubt that we'd be hitting up the best restaurant Macau had to offer.

With a string of accolades that very few restaurants can match, we chose the very refined three Michelin starred Robuchon au Dome.  Michelin stars are just the beginning for one of Robuchon's top restaurants!  Ranked number six restaurant in the world by Elite Traveller's top 100 restaurants; thirty five on the San Pellegrino's top 50 Asian restaurants and the second highest ranked Joel Robuchon restaurant in the La Liste top 1000 restaurants, the French fine diner's a must on any serious foodies list of restaurants to visit.

The trip to Macau hadn't started off as I'd have planned.  Meeting the girl at the Macau ferry, her first question me was 'where's your camera?'.  D'oh, I'd forgotten my camera for what I'd hoped would be a meal for the ages.  What would I do?  Well, I seriously contemplated buying a new camera, just for the meal.  I mean seriously contemplated it.  That was, until I saw that the camera I had my eye on was twice the listed price in HK.  

Luckily the iPhone 6+ camera has improved significantly - while not ideal, it would have to do.

L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon Hong Kong - the tasting menu

http://www.robuchon.hk/about_us

Right, just about everyone who loves French cuisine knows who Joel Robuchon is, so I'm not going to bore you with too much detail, suffice to say....  He's good.

If you want the full low down, you can check out more detail at some of my other posts - here.

I've been on a bit of a Joel fixation of late, mainly because of his incredible mashed potato, which it must be said is the best I've ever had.  So, as indulgent as it sounds, we booked into the three Michelin starred L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon just so I could have some more of that fantastic mash.

We've been to the Hong Kong outlet for L'Atelier before, and to be honest, I'd been just a little bit disappointed with the meal (see post here).  Don't get me wrong, it was good, but just not what I'd come to expect when dining at a Robuchon establishment.  

The last time, we'd selected our meal from the a la carte menu, so this time we wanted to sample the menu decouverte, or discovery menu, Robuchon's famous tasting menu.  I'd had the tasting menu at the Singapore outlet and had been blown away by the meal, so was hoping for the same for our latest visit.

The FoodMeUpScotty Top 10 of 2015 - Best Restaurants

Food Me Up Scotty 2015 Top Ten

It's hard to believe that my first year in Hong Kong is at an end.  It was exactly twelve months ago today that I hoped off the Qantas flight and stepped into my new life in Asia's most dynamic culinary city.  There are only a handful of cities around the world that truely have a reputation as being an epicentre for the culinary pursuits and Hong Kong just happens to be one of those few.  As a food blogger, that has meant that I've been like a kid in a candy store.

I've had time to reflect on my first twelve months and the amazing restaurant and dining experiences in which I've managed to partake.  While there have been well over a hundred restaurants I've checked out in my first year, there have only been a handful that I've repetitively revisited throughout the year, one of which has made my list.  

As you'd expect from a food capital, Hong Kong is home to many restaurant guides that have helped identify the standout dining establishments.  The Michelin Guide, the SCMP Top 100 Tables, the Hong Kong Tatler are all well known guides that mostly get it right but sometimes get it very wrong, with one of my favourite restaurants of all time losing it's Michelin Star.  I have to say that I'm excited to be living in a city that is part of the Michelin family, but I've also come to understand that the guide is fallible.

8 1/2 Otto e Mezzo Bombana - The Italian King

http://www.ottoemezzobombana.com/hong-kong/en/homepage/

When you visit a three Michelin Starred restaurant, you have a certain level of expectation.  I had very high expectations going in to my reservation for 8 1/2 Otto e Mezzo Bombana, not just because it was three Michelin Stars, but because it was the first Italian three star restaurant located outside of Italy.  There was added pressure though, the purpose of my visit was for our 18th wedding anniversary, so  it was a special occasion too.

It had required careful planning to get into 8 1/2 Otto e Mezzo for our anniversary dinner.  The restaurant is one of the most popular and consistently packed restaurants in Hong Kong and long range reservations are a requirement.  The fact that Umberto Bombana's fine diner has been open since January 2010 and it's popularity has not diminished at all in Hong Kong's ultra competitive dining scene is a testament to his genius.

That 8 1/2 Ottoe e Mezzo received two Michelin Stars within month's of it's opening signified that something special was going down, but in December 2011, Chef Umberto's legend was secured with his third star.

Yeah, expectations were high!

Fine Dining - Amber Hong Kong

http://www.amberhongkong.com/

Our first year in Hong Kong means a round of special occasions in a new country, you know the ones, birthdays, anniversaries and such. We've always had our favourite restaurants to revisit on those special occasions, but being in a new country means new dining spots and hopefully new memories.  We've had some lovely meals in Hong Kong so far, but were any worthy of revisits on a special occasion, that special someone only turns forty once right?

With an abundance of Michelin Starred restaurants in Hong Kong, we knew that we'd be able to find a great restaurant for dinner, but it had to be special.  So, what to do when presented with such a dilemma?  It was time to pull out the big guns, sure we could just look at the Michelin Starred list, but I wanted to go even better, so it was time to pull out the San Pellegrino - World's top 50 restaurants list.  There are some amazing restaurants in HK, but only one has consistently made the world's top 50 list, and that restaurant is Amber!

Amber has graced the list for five consecutive years, first joining the elite of world restaurants in 2011, where it listed as the 37th best restaurant on planet earth.  Since then, it's been a bit of a yo-yo ride up and down the list (currently back at #38), with it's highest ranking coming in 2014 where it came in at number twenty four, ahead of perennial favourites like Per Se and The Fat Duck.  Now, we're not strangers to the worlds restaurants in the world's top 50 list, with visits to Eleven Madison Park (#5 see post here), Le Bernadin (#18 see post here) and Attica (#32 see post here), so I was expecting something special.

Bo Innovation - X-treme Chinese perfection

http://www.boinnovation.com

We've been attending the 2015 'Chefs Talks', organised by the Fringe Club and Slow Food Hong Kong, where Hong Kong's best and most popular chefs come along and have a candid chat with an audience.  They've been really good.  One that I was really interested in getting along to was Bo Innovation's Alvin Leung Jnr, but fate wasn't on my side and I missed it due to work commitments.  SC on the other hand was able to get along and hear Alvin's view on the world, which was apparently quite amusing!

As fortune would have it, when I suggested that we book a table for arguably Hong Kong's best restaurant, we were able to secure a spot at the Chef's Table the following Saturday night.  With three Michelin Stars and a string of other accolades including appearing in the San Pellegrino Asia's Top 50 restaurants (#28) and the World's Top 50 restaurants (#97), restaurants don't get much better.

Fronted by a man that's been called the 'demon chef' (well, he calls himself the demon chef), Alvin Leung presents as quite the character.  Walking out of the elevator that took us from Ship Street in Wan Chai, we were greeted by a large wall mosaic of the demon chef himself.  Once we'd walked the dozen or so steps to the front of the restaurant, we'd been greeted warmly by many of the multitude of wait staff on hand to make our night's dining experience a memorable one.  

L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon - Three Michelin Stars

http://www.robuchon.hk/about_us

Hands down, my favourite cuisine is French fine dining.  A couple of years ago, I was able to fulfil a lifelong dream by eating at one of Paul Bocouse's many global restaurants.  It's a meal I will never forget.  If you've not heard of Paul Bocouse, then you need to check him out, he is one of three chefs to have been awarded 'Chef of the Century' by Gault Millau.  If you're into food though, I'm sure you've heard of the Bocuse d'Or, often called the world championship of cooking and named after the legendary chef.

One of the other legendary chefs awarded the 'Chef of the Century' tag is Joel Robuchon, who also holds the distinction of being awarded the most number of Michelin Stars globally, currently twenty five.  When I moved to Hong Kong, one of the first things that struck me was that I was moving to a city with a L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon, one of the few three Michelin Starred restaurants in Hong Kong.  With accolades that seem to fall like cherry blossoms in spring, L'Atelier is also ranked as the seventeenth best restaurant in Asia by the San Pellegrino Asia's top 50 list.

I'd been fortunate enough to have visited Singapore's L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon last year (see post here), but that was a solo dining experience, so I was keen to take SC along to experience the ultimate fine dining experience.  I was travelling when I asked SC to book a table at L'Atelier Hong Kong and when she came back to me to say that we could only get a seat at the bar.  I had a little chuckle, "It'll be OK, just wait and see" was all I could manage.  

I didn't want to spoil the surprise, but the whole point of L'Atelier de Joel Robucon is to bring the diner into the meal.  Originally conceived in Tokyo, the restaurants serve French haute cuisine in a stylised environment, with most of the seats arranged around the central kitchen.  L'Atelier translates into 'workshop' and the style of kitchen allows the diner to witness the chefs at work - watching the magic happen.