Gaddi's lunches are, in my opinion, the best deal in town. It used to be under HK$400/head with a glass of wine, tea/coffee and a gut-busting array of petit fours - it's now edged slightly over $400, but is still about only around 40% of the price at other top-drawer fine dining establishments, such as L'Atelier de Robuchon.
The style of food, however, is quite different from L'Atelier, and the décor is worlds apart. While L'Atelier is all sleek and shiny in raspberries and ebony (even the more "traditional" dining chairs are really neo-classical), it wouldn't be hard to imagine that Gaddi's fitout hasn't changed since the Peninsula opened way back in the colonial ages. It's got stuccoed walls, gold trims, rich brocades and plush carpets. And your food is still served with a pure silver dome-shaped cover, which the servers lift in unison at your table.
Gaddi's cuisine is fine French made with extreme care and detail using almost purely classical techniques, with emphases on sauces and harmonic flavour combinations.
For the lunch menus, there are usually around 2-3 choices per course. In this distinctly summer menu, I went for the cold cucumber soup with salmon tartare, a white-fleshed fish (forgotten, sorry) with fennel and saffron froth and basil mashed potatoes, and finally an apple tar with vanilla bean ice cream.
Everything was done to perfection. I even enjoyed the saffron froth, which is a rarity given my general distaste for aerated substances on my plate.
In a town so obsessed with newbies that often fail to live up to their hype, Gaddi's is a genuinely reliable stalwart that offers exceptional value (at lunch, especially).
Gaddi's Peninsula Hong Kong
Salibury Road
Tsim Sha Tsui
Hong Kong
+852 2315 3171
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