Charcoal smoked chicken breast with potatoes, shallots and charcoal powder.
COCONUTS CRITIC’S TABLE – Restaurant Akrame opened this year with great expectations. Its 32 year-old namesake, chef Akrame Benallal, has two Michelin star in Paris and a CV that boasts mentoring under names like Gagnaire and Adria. His meticulous plating and degustation menu signals lofty ambitions as a fine dining force to be reckoned with. He’s even secured a location on the the popular dining destination of Ship Street.
Like other chefs with international expansion goals, Benallal only shows up a few times a year to supervise and check out his kitchen. This time, he’s here to change the menu, creating a set of summertime dishes to last through August.
In general Akrame in Hong Kong has received mixed reviews. Some people love it, others unimpressed by the formality and tiny portions. Based on his new summer menu, I think the Frenchman is no doubt a daring talent with new ideas but, sad to say, they don’t always work. In fact, there are culinary decisions that are downright questionable.
The lunch begins with several small amuse bouche pieces that are called ‘pecking’. There’s a parmesan cookie with anchovy, a little bread with cauliflower and mustard, and a tiny piece of endive with a few salmon roe eggs resting on top.
The first course is a soup of smoked haddock and white asparagus, with an orange blossom foam. The flavours are very faint. Perhaps they are just too subtle for my taste buds. What is surprising is the use of spring white asparagus so late in the season, unless these are refrigerated stalks or from a can.
The next course is the most simple and enjoyable. Crab meat with a creamy mayonnaise and brown butter sandwiched between grilled slices of baby zucchini, with a drizzle of a charcoal black jus. The crab is fine but what is disappointing is that the baby courgette isn’t sweeter. A small, young vegetable should be at their tastiest.
The following dish defies all culinary instinct. A fried croquette of lobster is served with a caper and apple tartar sauce plus a sprinkle of lobster powder. The powder just tastes like ground up prawn shell but who in their right mind would deep fry a delicate meat like lobster? Unless the seafood isn’t fresh or it’s tasteless locally sourced crustaceans. Anyway, a lobster nugget is not what I expected.
The next seafood dish, pollack, the server says is marinated in a milk and “tandoori”. What? The fish is clearly poached. Tandoori is an Indian oven, not a spice. So what’s the tandoori element? Surely, a French Michelin chef should know simple Indian cuisine terminology. Maybe it’s some sort of garam masala. Doesn’t matter, the fish, which is often used as a cheaper substitute to cod and haddock, needed more assistance.
The main course was a charcoal smoked chicken breast with potatoes, shallots and charcoal powder. Black is Benallal’s favourite colour which may explain his frequent use of charcoal. The smoke does permeate the chicken but if you’re aiming for high Epicurean standard, is chicken breast really the most luxurious ingredient available?
By this point, the cooking has left me baffled and frustrated, even though the desserts are well-executed – including a ginger and strawberry milk froth and a chocolate and coffee ice cream with crisped rice. The lacklustre meal is not a failure of ideas or inspiration, but based on the ingredients selected, it’s more like a a kitchen trying to cut costs by using less expensive produce or those not of the highest grade. That’s not a good sign for a restaurant trying to compete at the top end.
The six course lunch menu is HK$580 and at dinner it is HK$998.
FIND IT
Restaurant Akrame
G/F, 9 Ship Street
Wan Chai
Tel. 2528-5068
Photos: Andrew Sun
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