Polish the Laguiole and dust off the decanters! It’s time for the second instalment of our EDW restaurant review series! Running from 9-19 November, DiningCity’s popular Elite Dining Week is a by-invitation culinary extravaganza showcasing over 30 new menus from the cream of Hong Kong’s restaurant crop. The resulting menus reflect each participant’s signature often alongside uniquely themed culinary experiences. Nowhere is this more apparent than at PIERRE – a bastion of refined French cuisine at The Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong.

For EDW 2017, Pierre Chef de Cuisine Jacky Tauvry has curated a six-course menu under the watchful eye of mentor Pierre Gagnaire. These dishes champion seasonal French produce (80 percent of the restaurant’s ingredients are sourced from French locales) and the molecular wizardry which Gagnaire finesses in his Parisian flagship on Rue Balzac.  Seasoned diners will be excited to (re)acquaint themselves with some of the Ligérien master chef’s classic creations. The Mimolette, Parmesan and Comté shavings elegantly subvert clichés associated with the ubiquitous cheese platter. The Grand Dessert is a sextet of diminutive sweets – some light others decadent – each a universe of flavour in its own right.

Gagnaire’s creative fingerprint is an undeniable part of the menu’s allure, but Tauvry injects his own insight into the proceedings with an assured and harmonious touch. Autumn is renowned for its bold hearty flavours; and the young Chef de Cuisine channels the season throughout 2017’s EDW menu. Snails persillade are perched atop a watercress velouté: evoking the imagery of a brilliantine green forest in Fall. Autumn leaves are replaced by caramelised salsifies (a root vegetable belonging to the dandelion genus) and the snails themselves – wonderfully unctuous, fragrant and moreish – would not seem out of place amidst a bounty of foraged delicacies.

Equally, wild game is now in season: traditionally sought after for its suitability to stewing and roasting. Tauvry’s take is the Grouse fillet with white bacon. Game fowl is roasted with thyme before being finished with a hint of peaty whisky; accompanied by what Tauvry somewhat self-effacingly dubs “sauerkraut” – cabbage minced until tender with fresh barely-acidic grapes. Paired with a Bordeaux from PIERRE’s monumental cellar (Gafencu recommends the Domaine de Chevalier 2000), this course is enough to convert even the staunchest steak lover into a gun toting plaid wearing hunter – eager for their next bounty of grouse from the moor.

The PIERRE EDW menu is tightly edited and self-assured. It’s a bravura display: balancing perennial favourites, crafted by its legendary namesake, with imaginative (yet completely comprehensible) seasonal cooking. It’s the sort of menu that suffers no mediocrity. Then again, at PIERRE, even the breadbasket deserves its own standing ovation.     

PIERRE (MANDARIN ORIENTAL)
5 Connaught Road Central
www.mandarinoriental.com

Reservations at Pierre during Elite Dining Week may be made via the DiningCity app and EDW website. Prices start at HK$1,998 (plus 10 percent gratuity). Stay tuned for the next instalment of our EDW restaurant review series!

Text: Randalph Lai