Grissini, Hong Kong

Went there 3 times already, always to enjoy the season cuisine of high quality. Definitely a landmark of genuine Italian cooking in HK. Ask for the sommelier Roberto, he is the best for Italian wines!

You would expect that a fine dining restaurant in a 5-star hotel would deliver, and Grissini does. The food is very good and the Sunday brunch is excellent. The "modern" tiramisu is also one of my favorites. Of course, you can't forget the wonderful grissinis fresh from the oven.

Three of us had lunch the there last week. I had heard for a long time that Grissini was the best Italian restaurant in Hong Kong and had been looking forward to it. However, it fell short of being a great restaurant experience. A perennial probloem with Hong Kong western restaurants is that local waiting staff just don't "get" European service. They are a bit clueless and, I find, tend to try to make up for its being overly servile. Despite this, they are quite obtrusive, so that any form of service interrupts the table conversation. This is to be expected in most restaurants her, but the truly top restaurants should be better. Places like The Mandarin Grill and M at the Fringe get it right, and an the flagship restaurant for a 5-star hotel - as Grissini's is - should get it right too. On to the food. The bradsticks served at the beginning of the meal are excellent and moreish. My friends had an antipasto which was quite good; however I had a risotto with black truffle. The risotto was undercooked and too watery and lukewarm. This is terrible - risotto needs to be done well if it is done at all, which is why I only order it at top restaurants. The main courses were very good - my milk-feed veal with sage was great; but if I ahve a complaint it's that the menu was the usual laundry list of internaitional Italian food: ie, one beef, one chicken, one veal, one osso bucco, etc; and all heavily sauced. There was not the simplicity in the menu that, for me, is the hallmark of Italian food. It was more like "international food" than true Italian food. Of course there is a separate pasta menu, but frankly, after the risotto, I wonder how well they would do this. Risotto is a bit of an acid test. All in all, a quite good restaurant, but very forgettable. Not worth it.The new Va Bene is probably better all round, although its a busier atmosphere, rather than a fine dining ambience (especially being located in Lan Kwai Fong!!!)