Estro (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★★★☆

The days of celebrating wedding anniversary overseas is long gone. I have already started planning for our wedding anniversary dinner months ago and the fact that we wanted to bring little nugget along made it a little tougher but I finally made it happen (with some negotiation).

Estro has been one of the hottest new restaurants in town since they first opened back in August. I was lucky enough to secure a table months ago and have been looking forward to this solo venture by Chef Antimo Maria Merone ever since (Ok, it's in partnership with JIA Group).

We first met Naples-born Chef Antimo Maria Merone when he first moved to Hong Kong as the head chef of L'Altro in 2012. Following a stint at 8 ½ Otto e Mezzo Bombana Macau as their Executive Chef, he's back in town for more.

We would love this little quiet corner but too bad it's only "big" enough for 2 people.

I got a quick tour of the private room which was very spacious.

Bitcoin? Heck no, it's today's menu! By scanning the QR Code behind the coin, we got an electronic copy of today's two tasting menu. Since little one's joining us tonight, we decided to take the shorter menu hoping he could keep his composure if we finish within 3 hours.

We were started off with an amuse that was themed "an ode to autumn". Not surprisingly, it's a medley of autumn vegetable dishes.

Kicking things off was silky pumpkin espuma. What that bottarga powder on top?

It was accompanied by three other nibbles, including a caper olive tart, spinach sponge with burrata cheese and finished off with the clean flavors of the minestrone soup. The soup was very savory with amazing kicks of umami.

We didn't have to wait very long for one of the chef's signature dishes, red prawns with coral panna cotta. It was topped elegantly with a layer of Kristal caviar from Paris (I miss Paris!). 

This was the perfect dish to start the evening. The Sicilian red prawn tartare was working superbly with the coral panna cotta and caviar. The flavors were so rich and strong that I thought it was a little salty at times (thanks to the caviar) and not surprisingly, the flavor from Amalfi lemon didn't really register.

While we were enjoying the chef's special creation, little one was quietly having his burrata cheese ball with fresh cherry tomatoes.

At this point, there was a pause in action while our server brought along our bread basket.

While the bread basket didn't exactly blow us away, this buffalo milk butter with anchovy did! Very tasty and very addictive. Little nugget had to get a refill a couple of times.

Next up was roasted langoustine served with a sauce made with almond, capers, olive oil and what our server claimed to be "langoustine stock" (whatever that means).

The langoustine was roasted to absolute perfection but I thought the sauce wasn't exactly the greatest match (almond with langoustine?). And the turnip with caper in the middle...hm... 

We are having two pasta dishes tonight. The first was homemade button pasta with parmigiana and eggplant fillings. It was finished off nicely with a soul-warming tomato jus. 

But the button pasta would prove to be no match for the second and last pasta dish, Mafalde "gentile" served with ragù "Genovese" of Montoro onions and short rib. The Mafalde was really al dente, almost on the hard side for most people I am sure. But it was perfect. Perfectly stringy, which was just amazing to have with the flavorful ragù. For me, the best dish of the night.

Served on the side as a second serving to the pasta was a small portion of the same short rib which has been slow-cooked for about 12 hours. So tender and juicy. 

We had another long pause before our main dish was ready to be served. It was pigeon cooked under ash with artichoke and fig.

The Restaurant Manager carefully broke the crust open. 

And there it was, the pigeon wrapped in fig leaves with artichoke. Now, they would bring this back to the kitchen where they put the finishing touches on it.

This was beautifully cooked as seen by its rosé color. We sat back while our server finished the dish off with a shower of fig and red wine reduction.

The pigeon breast was certainly pretty tasty but I was less impressed with the supporting cast which included variations of fig and raspberry chutney. I guess I'm just more used to the extensive use of fig in a dessert than a savory course. 

Little one was served with his pasta dish while we had our pigeon. Amazingly, he had already sat through this dinner for 2 hours without messing up the table.

And there we have it, our medal for sticking together for I almost forgot how long. Many thanks to my better half for putting up with me all these years. It's not easy (I know) but you made it look easy.

This was Chef Merone's take on the famous Ferrero Rocher chocolate.

Hazelnut chocolate with a liquid caramel centre. Surprisingly, not too sweet.

Petite fours were cute little fig bomboloni (fig again!), chocolate and almond cookie, blueberry panna cotta and fig tart.

We weren't done yet as we were offered one final dessert to wrap up the meal - homemade pistachio gelato. Jelloman claimed it was rich like pistachio butter. I think that's not a compliment.

It was a well-executed menu that they managed to deliver in an impressive 3 hours. Like most tasting menu, there were dishes that worked really well and ones that were less successful. But what seemed to be missing all night was that "Wow" factor, or dish(es) that simply blew us away. There was unfortunately no dish of that caliber in the offering tonight. 

Food Rating: 6.5/10

Price: $$$$

Address: 2/F, 1 Duddell Street, Central, Hong Kong

Closest Metro Station: Central

Tel: +852 9380-0161

Website: www.estro.hk

Opening Hours: 12:00pm - 3:00pm, 6:30pm - 11:30pm (Tue - Sat)