Branded as a fine dining experience in the heart of Old Town Phuket; definitely did not live to the hype.
Especially not at the price point of 4000+baht pre-alcohol-pairing, which is a price point that is even higher than many 1 star eateries in Bangkok.
As the only fine dining option we booked in our Phuket leg of the trip, we were very much looking forward to it given all the positive reviews on Google & the great food scene in Old Town. Marketed as 18 bites through 9 courses, only less than a handful was standout. Everything else was either too bland or too salty, and some even still had fish bones in them. There were also problematic areas with general services and utensils which we will get to in details.
Let’s start with the good.
There are a few dishes that were surprising in both its flavor as well as the incorporation of local Thai ingredients with French cooking.
Hokkaido Scallops with pomelo & sardine salad, mango puree, sea grape, and pomelo sorbet.
The flavor profile was really refreshing and unique, the pomelo & sardine gave the scallop a different taste as you take on different bites.
Prawn with two different chili dips & roasted citrus.
This one was made unique by the 2 different types of chili pairings. The red chili with fish sauce was the more traditional Thai profile while the black dip gave me Mexican mole tasting notes that were particularly interesting.
Roasted spiced chicken in broth with chili & pickled onion.
The dish had 2 distinct tastes, one without mixing the chili in and one with. I enjoyed both ways. When sipping the broth on its own, it was strong with ginger & garlic. But when mixed with the chili paste, it tasted very much like tom yum profiles with lemongrass.
Now on to the bad.
And unfortunately there are quite a few. Let’s start with the dishes. The amuse bouche course was ok with 4 different bites, but nothing really extremely memorable even though there were some interesting ingredients like pig ear that you normally don’t see in fine dining. The other mains like roasted pork belly or the fish in yellow curry were really not good. Dessert was extremely disappointing.
Roasted Pork Belly with Kale 3 ways.
The pork belly was really mediocre and not any better than the street food we got at a local restaurant. The pain was really with the kale….oh man the kale… the pickled kale was too tough to even cut through (we will talk about the cutleries later) and I could not even chew it properly so I just forced myself to swallow it.
Fish bone in the fish with yellow curry.
I know some folks might think I am nit picking, but considering the price point, there should NOT be any bone. Simply disappointing.
Dessert was super gimmicky…..
They made you eat some pineapple paste with pop rocks on a toothbrush and call that dessert… I really don’t know what more to say….
Let’s wrap up by talking about the rest of it.
The owners really need to think about how to the entire cutlery set up. The forks and knives are not changed from course to course which meant that you strong tastes like sardines and anchovies influence subsequent dishes. I had to ask for a new spoon at one point because I did not want my taste for the next dish to be ruined. They also had a weird cutlery holder that was made with unglazed ceramic, which meant when there is oil on the cutleries, it left a oil pool on the stone and gets absorbed… It is just unhygienic and really bothered me when the server then used alcohol wipe on it to wipe the oil as they put the new knife down…
There were some other smaller details like the fact that there were mosquitos, I had trouble hearing or understanding the servers, there was no menu card, the servers had issues passing the food over a very wide bar as space was crammed. But the crazy thing was as we were leaving, a server dropped a huge glass of wine on the floor and glass went flying everywhere…
Overall, I don’t think the restaurant is ready for prime time or Michelin nod any time soon.
