Steph C.
Yelp
Tosca is a Michelin-starred restaurant on the 102nd floor of the Ritz Carlton, the highest hotel in the world, located in the tallest building in Hong Kong. It's a good restaurant, but it's definitely the kind of place where you know you're paying for the view--not because the food isn't great, but because it's enormously fucking expensive.
I don't usually harp on expense when reviewing fancy restaurants, but Tosca's pricing is really egregious. Almost every dish--appetizer, pasta, or entree--costs upwards of 400 Hong Kong dollars, or over fifty bucks in American money. That is crazy. And the food is pretty tasty and all, but it isn't anything earth-shattering. I've had better Italian meals for probably a quarter of the money.
The venue, though, is pretty marvelous. I came with my family for my husband Matt B.'s birthday dinner, and we were impressed with the space. Matt has a particular interest in cities and tall buildings, so this was really perfect for him. We made a 6:30 reservation so we could catch the sunset, getting both daytime and nighttime views of Hong Kong. We rode the Peak Tram up during this trip, but got much better views from Tosca. The restaurant itself was also very attractive, sleek and modern but visibly opulent.
Service was formal and generally competent, but there was one not insignificant mistake. The kitchen messed up a pasta order, bringing out the wrong dish for my mom. She had to wait a while for her replacement, and there wasn't much in the way of an apology, certainly nothing taken off the bill. Not a big deal in the scheme of things, but kind of unacceptable for $50+ pastas.
The food was good, some of it great. No real complaints, at least. We started with a nice assortment of bread--sourdough, olive, and rosemary tomato focaccia--and an amuse bouche of fish and chips. This was a neat little morsel of fried cod served with a dollop of tartar sauce and a couple potato chips.
We ordered a la carte, as we had some picky eaters, but there were tasting menus available. Matt and I each got antipasti and pasta, and shared a secondi. Our whole table went in on a few desserts. This was plenty of food--going for four courses each would've been decadent even ignoring the prices.
I started with the sea tiramisu, a beautiful plate of red prawn carpaccio served with seared scallop and parsley cream. The carpaccio was pleasantly delicate, if light on the texture, and I loved the tender scallop and the whipped tiramisu mound of parsley cream. I also liked the fried shrimp shell on the side, which was kind of like a shrimp cracker. Matt's beef carpaccio was also good, little bites of beef combined with ricotta cheese, homemade tomato jam, and saffron rice crackers. The pastas were pretty good, but I've certainly had better. My squid ink fettuccine was a tiny bit bland and cooked a tiny bit soft. I've had better squid ink pasta for under $20, at at least a dozen different places. It was good enough to polish off, though, tossed with diver scallops and zucchini. Matt's homemade fusilli was much better, the thick twists of pasta cooked a proper al dente, covered in a rich chicken tomato ragout and provolone cheese. For our entree, we shared the poached red tuna with "ventresca" sauce and caper. This was a beautiful piece of fish, meaty and flavorful, cooked just right with a lot of red in the center. The sauce was thick and velvety, also made with tuna, amping up the flavor of the fish even further.
Desserts were lovely, and the one placed in front of Matt came with a birthday candle. This was the Tosca Chuao 82% chocolate delight, a dense medley of molten chocolate, chocolate cake, and chocolate ice cream, lightened with a bit of passionfruit. The traditional tiramisu with limoncello was nice and airy and not too sweet, a trifle-style preparation with layers and layers of tiramisu goodness. My favorite dessert, though, was the lemon soufflé, which required twenty minutes of prep. This was a light, fluffy, whispering soufflé, tart and bright, served with banana and lime sherbet. Would definitely recommend. Dinner ended with mignardises--biscotti, coffee cream, chocolate truffle, lemon Madeleine, and raspberry pate de fuit. Sweet little notes to send us home.
I wouldn't go to Tosca more than once, but we did have a good time here, in large part due to the restaurant's location and view. The food was great, too, just not amazing enough to justify the prices. I'm sure there are other places in Hong Kong more worthy of this kind of splurge.
