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Image 1: My third restaurant at Grand Lisboa of this trip.
Image 2: Located on the third floor of the hotel, it is another big name - Chef Alfonso, once a Michelin 3-star chef in the Amalfi coast specialising in South Italian cuisine. Their family restaurant was established in 1890 and it's now headed by the 4th generation, the son of Alfonso, Ernesto. This outpost at Macau was opened in 2007.
Image 3: Similar to his flagship in Italy, the décor is homey with a touch of elegancy.
Image 4: Extraordinary wine list over 600 pages featuring 16,000 labels.
Image 5: In general, Italian fine dining is a very challenging cuisine to be successful in mainland Chinese market. In terms of European cuisine, French cuisine would be the most popular choice and you got Robuchon conveniently located on the top floor of the same hotel. And this explained why we were the only table in the dining room that night. There was a family of four dining in the private room that night as well.
Image 6: The menu cover is their restaurant in Italy. We flipped through the a la carte but decided to go with tasting menu immediately.
Image 7: Bread basket
Image 8: Served with butter and olive oil. The olive oil had a nice grassy aroma.
Image 9: Amuse bouche: Fried little prawn crispy / Polenta / Salmon roe / Beetroot powder
Image 10: First course was pan-fried scampi wrapped in bacon. Served with deep fried artichoke and summer black truffle. Though it was a touch too salty, it was still an excellent light and flavourful dish.
Image 11: San Marzano tomato soup with pan-fried scallop, garnished with Oregon. The focus was not the scallop, but the intense tomato soup. When you got great tomato like this, even a simple dish becomes a delicacy.
Image 12: Nothing is better than a simple plate of spaghetti is it is done right as in this case. Simply served with tomato and basil. The manager asked if we want our pasta to be noodle soft since most locals don't prefer al dente. I was so glad we let the chef to decide how pasta should be cooked. Of course, we got a perfect al dente spaghetti as a result.
Image 13: Main course was a seafood casserole. It has lots of goodies like lobster, scallop, scampi, clams and fish. This is not my way to enjoy fresh seafood, however, the sauce was packed with flavours that I soaked all up at the end with bread.
Image 15: Came with simple vegetable on the side.
Image 16: First dessert was wild strawberry and vanilla ice cream. All about simple but quality ingredients.
Image 17: Neapolitan puff pastry stuffed with cinnamon and candied sour cherries. Warm. Flaky. Crispy. No complain.
Image 18: Sicilian pistachio soufflé. Warm. Fluffy. Airy. Good small portion.
Image 19: A table of self served confectioneries as petit four.
Image 20: I really enjoyed the meal. Nothing too fancy, but an ingredient focused cuisine showcasing the quality of ingredients they have. I can see why it is difficult to take off in the local market since Chinese would probably expect a much more complex and rich dish when it comes to European dining, at least that what most would have in mind, and definitely won’t expect tomato soup is considered as a course!
