Ta Vie

I haven't reviewed a restaurant in a long time. The first and only time before this was almost 6 years ago. I found the process of writing (and later reading) so boring that I had to take a break. The break however did not extend to my quest for trying the best fine dining restaurants in the world.

Since l'Atelier, I have tried a few more on the World's best and Asia's best lists. From the lists for 2017, this includes Amber (Asia's Best #3, World's Best #24), 8 1/2 Otto et Mezzo Bombana (#4, #60), Nahm - Bangkok (#5, #28), The Chairman (#47, NA) and Caprice (NA, NA). These were all good.

8 1/2 and Nahm were probably the more memorable of the lot. Caprice was so forgettable that until a couple of days ago, I had forgotten I had even eaten there! Maybe that's why it's not on either list anymore. The others were standard fine dining fare. I don't think any of these would make it to my personal favourites of top restaurants. Very few fine dining restaurants would if any. But that's probably for another post.

That brings me to Ta Vie (#33, NA). It resides at the Pottinger Hotel on Queen's Road Central. Being relatively new restaurant with limited reviews, I was bit apprehensive to select this place to celebrate a special occasion. However, if ever a fine dining restaurant was to make it to my personal list, Ta Vie would be it. I liked it so much that it felt like a moral obligation to put an end to my sabbatical from reviewing and share my appreciation of this place.

Chef Hideaki Sato's creativity with his theme of "pure, simple, seasonal" was a joy to experience. The combination of Asian flavours, French technique and a chef's passion was well reflected in the palate's desire for more. There can't be any other parameter for good food than that.

The only option for dinner is the 8 course tasting menu. This changes with seasons. Spring would be proud of Chef Sato's gastronomical representation of it.

The first course was a Squid Caesar salad. The squid itself was probably one of the best cooked I've had. It was soft and not chewy at all. It tasted extremely fresh. But I was not wowed by this dish. In my books, there is only so good a caesar salad can be and this met those expectations. At this point I was thinking, "right, here we go". This dinner experience is going to be like all my other fine dining experiences - standard fare with a twist; squid instead of chicken. While being nice as a one off, it's not something I am going to remember or long for after the dinner.

My thoughts changed very quickly with the second course. It was described as a "clam chowder" with whelk. Being someone who likes robust dishes, I was looking forward to this. I thought I'd get something hearty for a change that would leave me satisfied instead of a tiny little dish tasting menus normally have. But what came out was tiny. A bowl with the solids of the chowder was laid on the table. This was followed by a table side service of the liquid part of the chowder being poured into the bowl from a conch. Unnecessary drama I thought. The chowder had a relatively thin consistency so I was ready to be disappointed on another count by this dish. And disappointed I was. I wanted more! The chowder tasted wonderful. It was light, full of flavors and refreshing. The notes of each ingredient, particularly the peas and the whelk were clearly evident and delightful. It was a chowder and at the same time, it wasn't. Now I was tentatively excited about this dinner. Would the rest of the dishes stand up?

The next dish definitely did. It was a mix of chopped strawberries, beets and tomatoes on a bed of burrata cheese. This was drizzled with olive oil and garnished with basil. This dish probably respected the core ingredients more than any of the others. It was more an assembly of flavors and textures rather than cooking. While the strawberries were more subtle than I'm used to, everything worked really well together. The cheese were creamy and light, the fruits and vegetables were fresh and the basil was strong. A mouthful of all together was both satisfying and cleansing on the palate. The mind says to stop now while this meal is still memorable. The heart says, go on.

Speaking of conflicts, the next dish created one for the senses. It was a braised abalone with onions, mushrooms and some sauce served in what appeared to be it's shell. However, the mind was blown away a bit when we were told that the shell is edible. It was actually made with puff pastry. Digging in and getting a bit of all the components together created a nice blend of textures and flavours. The crispy shell, the soft abalone with exactly the right amount of chewiness, the earthiness of the mushrooms and the savoury sauce all created a well balanced dish.

After the mind tricks with the abalone, the next dish was a pleasant surprise for the glutton in me. A pasta dish which was not on the menu was presented. Extra dish!? Score!! I didn't care how this one would have tasted. Extra food is always good. Having said that it was good fettuccine in a herb sauce stopped with sea urchin. From my previous review, you'd know I don't like sea urchin. But this one I liked. So well done Chef!

Coming back on track, the official fifth course presented was a lobster in a Chinese yellow wine sauce. I was expecting to taste some alcohol much like the Chinese drunken chicken. However this was completely different. The lobster's texture was perfect. It absorbed the space perfectly and together created a very nice dish. But the sauce by itself was to die for. I could have drunk a bowl full of it! It had the nice familiarity of a seafood broth and yet had a uniqueness I cant describe to it. Yet again, I was disappointed that there wasn't more of it.

After the lobster came the last savoury course of the night, the Pigeon. This was described as the "main" of the dinner. I've had hits and misses with Pigeon. Sometimes good, sometimes too gamey. This one was the best I've had by far. The pigeon itself was cooked to perfection. Soft, juicy and seasoned perfectly. It was specifically made for us as we opted not to have the beef when the booking was made. However we learned that this dish was created for a special menu as part of a collaboration event with a restaurant called Nerua in Spain. If the pigeon was a sample of that menu, I'd starve a whole day to try all if (and if you know me, I don't take starving lightly)

Having enjoyed 7 amazing courses so far, I was truly satisfied and looking forward to the two dessert courses. Being a chocolate person, I was bit disappointed that neither of them featured any when described on the menu. But based on the experience so far, I was a bit more open minded.

The first of the two was a visual treat. It was almond ice-cream with meringue and fresh strawberries encased covered in a transparent candy glass. While the presentation was inventive and beautiful, I didn't find the flavour to be extraordinary. Everything was good and worked well with each other, but I missed my chocolate

Any longing quickly disappeared with the last dish of the night. As described in the menu, it is not something I would ever order. It was a crepe with bananas with a passion fruit and truffle sauce along with vanilla ice cream. I'm glad I didn't have a choice. The bananas were perfectly caramelised. The sauce was neither too sweet nor tart and yet the flavours of passion fruit and truffles came through distinctly. The ice-cream provided the sweetness of a dessert, did not mask any of the flavours and yet stood out on it's own. The crepes served as a good carrier to hold all the flavours together without intruding. Together the dessert worked delightfully. It was a perfect end to a joyful lineup of delectable food.


If it hasn't come across already, I really like Ta Vie. The service is what you would expect from any fine dining restaurant of repute. But the food really stood out. I generally think such restaurants are worth trying once. However with Ta Vie, I'd look forward to going back. Considering the menu changes every season, it's hard to say if the next time would be just as good or not. But considering that I enjoyed 6 out of 8 courses, there is a high chance it will. I look forward to tracking Chef Sato's career. I wish him and the staff all the best and highly recommend Ta Vie for a special evening.

L'Atelier De Joel Robuchon - Hong Kong

I recently came across the San Pellegrino's 2011 list of the best restaurants in the world. Considering the billions of eating joints around the world, I was very intrigued in finding out what really made these places stand out. I don't think I'll be able to review even a fraction of these restaurants but there's no harm trying. Of course the best place to start would be one of the 4 restaurants in Hong Kong on the list. 

So that brings me to L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon at the Landmark in Central. It's ranked at 72 on the list of top 100. It's probably worth noting that the original L'Atelier in Paris is ranked 14.

Ok. Enough with the Rankings..on to the restaurant itself...food and service.

The seating area at L'Atelier is organized similar to a sushi counter with the chefs and cooks working in the middle surrounded by a counter top with high chairs. My friend and I were the first to arrive and were straight away shown to a our seats at the counter. For a few minutes we were the only pair at the counter and it seemed like an excellent opportunity for the person across the counter to strike up a conversation and get a few brownie points on service. Unfortunately that was lost. But she was very polite in taking our orders. In an endeavor to try as many dishes as I could, I ordered the extravagant 8 course Menu Decouverte. My friend chose the 4 course dinner.

A little while later another couple arrived and were seated next to us. It was disappointing to see that they were served with a bread basket ahead of us while we just sat there waiting. Eventually we got ours almost 5-10 mins after them. In most scenarios when restaurants are full and you can't really determine who arrived ahead of you, it's not really a big deal. But at an empty counter when it's blatantly obvious you were the first there and you get served last, it does reflect a certain carelessness and insensitivity in service. So straight away L'Atelier lost a few points there.

Coming to the breadbasket itself, as you can see, it was plentiful both in variety and quantity. The breads were warm (you could see one of the servers heating them in the oven before serving them) but apart from the generous portions nothing particularly stood out in taste.

The first dish served to both of us was an Amuse-Bouche of a cold savoury tomato jelly. It was a very refreshing dish to start service with.  The texture and consistency of the jelly showed some really finesse in technique as it literally liquified in your mouth into something that carried the flavour of fresh tomatoes in  a manner that was neither strong nor diluted. I was quite pleased with it.

After the pleasant start, came my first course, Le Caviar. Not being used to fine dining, when the dish was first served, I wondered if I was meant to eat it or put it up on my wall as some sort of award. It looked like a plaque. Coming to the dish itself, it was a small tin with a layer of salmon (I think) at the bottom, crab in the middle and caviar on the top. The three flavors and textures worked quite well together and I could distinctly taste each element. However overall, the dish tasted a bit fishy. Yes, yes, it's probably what I should expect when I'm eating fish eggs with fish and crabs but I've always heard and even experienced that fresh seafood does not taste fishy. So I'm not sure if the dish tasted the way it should have but I did like it. 

My next course was Le Crabe. It was a crabmeat "mille-feuille" layered with tomato avocado and green apple. This dish looked very pretty on the plate in a pool of cold tomato consome (i don't know how else to describe it). However it was a hard dish to eat. I think the layers of tomato were frozen and when I tried to cut through it with the side of my fork, the layers slid over each other (I wasn't given a knife with this dish). I could taste the crabmeat and the tomato, but the avocado and green apple were too subtle for my taste buds. I could see the green but not taste it. Overall this dish looked a lot better than it tasted.

Then came Le Fois Gras. I don't recall what the menu description of the dish was, but it seemed like a pan-seared fois gras served with some sort of cherry sauce. The sauce and fois gras combination was delicious. A very good combination of sweet and savoury. My only complaint for this dish was there wasn't enough of it.

After the high of the fois gras came the low of my dinner that night, L'Oursin - the sea urchin. Having never tried sea urchin before, this dish has put me off it for a while. It was served with a layer of a foamy fennel emulsion on top. The sea urchin itself was a sort of fish puree like consistency which with the bubbles in the emulsion left a very sick feeling in my mouth. The taste itself was not bad, but the combination of textures is not something I want to try again anytime soon. I just hurried through this dish (having paid a lot of the whole meal..there was no way I was going to waste food...).

After the experience of the sea urchin I was really looking forward to the next dish to take away the after taste from my mouth. It was Le Black Cod. The dish was both a high and a low. The cod itself was cooked to perfection with the layers just flaking off as I ate it. It seemed like it had been flavored with a very distinct sweet japanese tasting marinade which was very nice. However the low of the dish was the sauce that it was served in. The creamy sauce tasted a lot like the foamy emulsion served with the sea urchin minus the bubbles. It seemed like the chef intended to marry an asian flavored fish with a western sauce however these two are best left to be in open relationships with others. I enjoyed the cod by itself and let the sauce be. I do wish I could have had more of the cod though.

Finally came my main course, L'Agneau - the lamb. The lamb itself was juicy and cooked to just the right extent. It was served with some sort of a herbs sauce which went well with the lamb. There's not much I can say about this dish is that it's probably the only dish that tasted the way I expected it to taste. As a main the portion was very small, but then again, I guess most people are quite full by the time they get to the main on an eight course menu. 

Finally came my two desserts. Any meal that includes two desserts definitely gets an extra point for it. By now you're probably as bored reading this as I am writing it, so all I'll say is that the desserts tasted as good as they look above. One was mango based. The other chocolate and berry. Yummy (for lack of technical terms).

Overall the experience of dining at L'Atelier was interesting. From the dishes you could see techniques that are very refined, innovative and that take years to perfect which is why this restaurant maybe ranked among the best. However I'm not totally convinced technique always results in good flavour.  I don't believe the Menu Decouverte was really worth it. I got to taste a variety of dishes but I didn't really like all of them.  The Dinner Menu which my friend had seemed more reasonable at about 1/3rd the cost with more sizable portions with pretty good flavour.

In addition as mentioned before, there were certain aspects of service that were not good. Since the kitchen is visible right in front of you, the staff need to take extra precautions for appearing hygienic. I noticed a cook in front of me working very diligently on plating a very complicated looking dish with his head about 6 inches over the plate. Like in Hell's kitchen when the main chef yells out the order, the other cooks acknowledge the order by yelling back. This cook yelled back right into the dish! I'm sure in most restaurants where you can't see the kitchen all sorts of things happen. But with food, sometimes what you don't see..doesn't hurt.

Anyway...I do recommend L'Atelier. They do some really innovative things with ingredients which is always refreshing to see. However the service does lack compared to expectations.