ÉPURE (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★★★☆

The revolving doors on the food scene of Harbour City spin once again as the famous Tsim Sha Tsui shopping mall welcomes its latest addition Épure this week. Located inside its La Boutique Dalloyau, Épure is a classic French restaurant with a modern twist.

The kitchen of Épure is helmed by executive chef Nicolas Boutin who has held similar positions at five-star hotels in different parts of the world including Four Seasons Resort Bora Bora and Mandarin Oriental Boston.

When we stepped into Épure's dining room, we were slightly shocked with all the contrasting colors. The excessive use of gold didn't seem to mesh well with the forest wall murals and wooden ceiling and floor. But luckily the menu more than made up for it.

The first two nibbles provided quite a lovely start to this meal. First up was an olive muffin topped with candied tomato purée and that was followed up by a shrimp tart with cream, celery and mint. A pretty good mix of rich and refreshing flavors there.



Paled in comparison was the further amuse bouche, a minced salmon with crouton, green apple slice and apple purée (6/10).



We took a longer-than-expected wait while we enjoyed the bread here. But thankfully our starters arrived just in the nick of time and it was a beauty presentation-wise. 

Meet our sautéed snails with tomato confit, "pink Lautrec" garlic, cabbage and sorrel. They were using extra large snails from the Burgundy region and serving them in a beetroot red wine sauce.

This was a masterfully executed dish. The Burgundy snails which were naturally flavorful, were brilliantly matched with a very intense beetroot red wine sauce giving it great depths of flavors in the process (8/10).



Not to be outdone was the other starter, a playfully presented Maine lobster with poached rhubarb, fennel salad and basil purée. 

I liked the fact that they kept it simple by poaching the lobster with minimal seasoning. And I was even more pleasantly surprised how well the lobster worked with rhubarb, fennel and basil in their different contrasting textures. That was another superb dish (8/10).



We got a lot to look forward to in the main course section and they did not disappoint. 

Our first main course was a roasted spring lamb shoulder from France and it had a picture-perfect tender texture. A black olive purée, Espelette chili jelly and mint flavored pear helped to lift this dish to another level (7.5/10). 

Keeping the trend of minimal seasoning was the second main course - a seared line-caught Atlantic silver cod. The cod fillet was presented on a bed of chopped mushrooms and finished with a light tarbais bean foam (6.5/10).

 


Our expectation was set relatively high for dessert. And rightfully so considering that Épure came from strong confectionary roots. 

They came out strong right off the gate with our first dessert, Framboises.

Beneath the thin layer of light meringue were fresh raspberries and almond biscuit. What a refreshing way to start off our dessert (7.5/10)!


 

The l'ananas was not a bad idea too. Ultra thin carpaccio of pineapple was met with a scoop of fromage blanc sorbet giving us just enough to send our palates to a frenzy (7/10).



After dinner, a lovely earl grey tea to put an exclamation mark to this wonderful meal.



Petite fours of yuzu lemon tart and chocolate marshmallow were next. Hey, we just had a chocolate marshallow at Aberdeen Street Social the other night. Can we have a couple of Dalloyau macarons instead?



Chef Boutin's style is deceptively simple with few garnishes. Simple and unpretentious, that's the way I like it.

Food Rating: 8/10
Price: $$$$

Address: Shop 403, 4/F, Ocean Centre, Harbour City, Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong

Closest Metro Station: Tsim Sha Tsui
Tel: +852 3185-8338
Website: www.epure.hk