Artistic Dining

Food guest blogger hkLifestyleGeek visits Angelini.

Angelini, the Italian fine dining restaurant at the Kowloon Shangri-La has a new chef, Marco Medaglia who was formerly at Aqua. The personable Italian is keen to be out in the dining room, greeting his customers and getting feedback on his dishes. He's changed the vast majority of the menu, making sure his culinary touches leave a tasteful impression. However, the start of the meal seems very pedestrian with a small bruschetta as the amuse bouche. It was very straight forward, with freshly chopped Italian tomatoes on a small toasted piece of bread that nevertheless was a prologue of the fresh ingredients to come.

The starter was a divine dish of plump scallops cooked lightly so they were still slightly pink inside, with a cream and olive oil sauce, topped with the most fragrant truffle caviar. Apparently Chef Marco makes the caviar from truffle water, which in itself sounds like magic.

The pasta dish was presented on a porcelain artist's palette, an array of colours, shapes and textures on the plate. The highlight were the homemade ravioli stuffed with lobster mousse and shaped like flowers, and there were surrounded by clams and foam of clam water and pea paste.

For the main event, the sea bass "cartoccio style" arrived at the table wrapped up in parchment paper. When it was unwrapped the fillets of pan-fried sea bass sat on top of a bed of diced mixed roasted vegetables including olives, zucchini, potato, cherry tomatoes and onions. The fish was perfectly cooked, and the vegetables fresh and delicious. Highly recommended.

Meat eaters can indulge in the beef tenderloin with a generous slice of goose liver on top on a bed of red wine sauce and decorated with a sprig of rosemary. Cooked medium rare, the beef was very tender and beautifully complemented the seared foie gras that was very smooth and creamy.

If that hasn't sated your appetite, there's also the Angelini signature dessert platter. It comes with two scoops of ice cream, one coffee, the other passion fruit and we really like the latter for its intense flavours. There's also a yummy canoli, amaretto cake and Chef Marco's version of tiramisu featuring a coffee jelly bottom and lots of cream on top!

Angelini
M/F, Kowloon Shangri-La
64 Mody Road
Tsim Sha Tsui East
Kowloon
2733 8750
www.shangri-la.com