The opening of VIEW62 back in May 2012 was highly anticipated. Every food columnist was talking about it - with good reasons. The restaurant is an ambitious project by Paco Roncero, Michelin 2-star chef and protégé of legendary Ferran Adrià (i.e. the big name behind elBulli). It features nouvelle cuisine, which is said to be a more advanced approach to cooking than molecular gastronomy - sounds more like magic than cookery doesn't it? And if you used to love La Ronda of Furama Kempinski Hotel, you would be happy to know that VIEW62 is a grand revolving restaurant where you can relive your fond memories!
With such an impressive profile, it almost seemed absurd not to visit VIEW62. When they started to serve afternoon tea in August, I knew it's the time to go!
In terms of view, VIEW62 is no match to restaurants in Ritz-Carlton, which pride themselves on the stunning vista of Victoria Harbour. But here you can enjoy a 360-degree panorama of Hong Kong Island without moving your butt! A shame that the weather was rather bad on my day of visit.
As the restaurant was only half-full (obviously their tea set was not known to many ppl), the tea set arrived soon after we placed our order -
Anchovies with tomato, basil and black olive
Mini burger with old fashioned mustard
Iberico ham baguette
Melon caviar and chocolate truffle cake
Melon caviar!
Chocolate macaroon and berries with white wine jelly
Pistachio sponge with yogurt and lemon cup
White coffee cream
The savouries looked rather conventional but they were brilliant taste-wise. The anchovies were fresh and silky. The addition of pesto and tomatoes neutralized the heavy saltiness of the fish and the result was surprisingly refreshing. I also liked the Iberico ham, which was delightfully juicy and chewy. It formed a great combination with the crispy baguette shell. It's not easy to find decent Iberico ham in HK (which is why I often crave for it ever since my visit to Southern Spain some years ago), but I was quite satisfied with what I had this time.
But the good things seemed to end here. The sweets had a relatively more futuristic take; the finest examples being the melon caviar and pistachio sponge. The former was invented by Ferran Adrià and is now a classic dish in molecular gastronomy. Through a technique termed "spherification", liquid melon juice is transformed into jelly-like caviar. Sadly, the chemistry behind was far more spectacular than the caviar itself - the orange pellets were soft and tasteless like tapioca. There's a faint hint of fruit but I didn't think I could name it if the menu didn't say it's melon. The alien-like pistachio sponge was another letdown. It had the most unusual, if not weird, texture. It was extremely light, even lighter than soufflé despite its pretty solid appearance! Eating it was like swallowing a gush of nutty-flavour air. An interesting work of art, but as a cake it was seriously unsatisfying... :0
That was only the beginning of a series of disappointment. The macaron was neither crunchy nor chocolatey. The white wine jelly, which had the most self-explanatory name ever, was just white wine made into a simple jelly (at least that was what it tasted like). I was also shocked that they served cream that tasted nothing more than the cream topping of Starbucks coffee as part of the tea set... even though the lemon cup (I loved the langue du chat cup!) and chocolate cake were ok, they could not change the fact that the tea set was doomed.
Each tea set came with 2 choices of beverage - Earl Grey, English Breakfast, coffee, etc... boring stuff. I was more curious about the "choice from special tea trolley" mentioned in the menu. The waiter explained that I could choose from a list of over 40 special teas at an extra cost of $40 per person. The price was steep definitely, but I got curious as I was browsing the long list... "Check Mate", "Pink Flamingo", "Gold Rush"... it was unmistakable that these were blends from Canadian tea brand DAVDsTEA!
Since we had never seen DAVIDsTEA anywhere else in HK, we seized the opportunity to order Earl's Garden and Kiss of Love (officially known as Read My Lips). Earl's Garden was a sweet, girly blend with a dominant strawberry candy flavour. Though it's supposed to be a variation of Earl Grey, the bergamot flavour was glaringly absent. Kiss of Love was a more complicated tea - a chocolate-flavoured tea that also tasted spicy and minty. Guess what, the website says it even contains little red candy lips! Too bad I did not check the teapot. Overall, the teas were interesting; I would recommend them to light-hearted tea drinkers who look for fun more than taste.
THE VERDICT
Ambience: B (I thought I was in a Macau hotel when I saw the mishmash of glossy panels, glittering surfaces, satin cushions, as well as the gold-purple colour scheme.... sorry, just not my idea of tastefulness)
Food: C+
Overall remarks: With a price tag of $500 per 2 persons (it was well over $600 including the cost of special tea for 2 persons and 10% service charge), VIEW62's tea set is easily one of the most costly tea sets in HK. I definitely expected it to be extraordinarily good, considering that it's even more expensive than the tea sets offered by The Repulse Bay, Ritz-Carlton, Mandarin Oriental, etc. To my dismay, it was the biggest disappointment of the year. When I went to the restaurant I was prepared to be amazed,but I didn't expect the amazement to come from their courage to charge such an extortionate price for such a mediocre tea set. I believe they really want to make their tea set special, or they would not have curated DAVIDsTEA for the tea trolley. Perhaps they just need a bit more time? Though I am not sure if I would take the risk to give their tea set a second chance...
INFO
VIEW62 by Paco Roncero (website)
62/F, Hopewell Centre, 183 Queen's Road East, Wanchai, Hong Kong
Afternoon tea: 3:00 - 5:00pm daily
$500 for 2 persons
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