Le Jardin de Joel Robuchon, Central, Hong Kong

We go from cheap eats from my last blog to Michelin stars in this one. As a birthday treat, my wife took me out to L'atelier de Joel Robuchon in Central for lunch.

This place is split into two and we were sat at 'Le Jardin'. This is a more comfortable setting then the bar table set up they have at the other part of the restaurant. Here we sat on a sofa chair overlooking the rest of the dining area (shown below) and the roof garden, which was very pleasant.

Restaurant Interior

Menus were given to us and we selected our food choices and drinks to start off with. They had a set lunch meal of three courses of quite extensive options so we both went for that. I chose a Heineken to drink.

Bread Basket Selection

After ordering we were given bread and the basket was left with us as shown above. The Amuse Bouche, shown below soon followed, which consisted of a cold asparagus soup and a little cake. These were cute little things that was a good indication presentation wise, of the remaining food to come.

Amuse Bouche

I decided to go for the 'Jambon de Boeuf Wagyu', as written on their menu as my appetizer. This was slices of Wagyu Beef ham sat on top of a Focaccia base with goats cheese, onion and pepper, finished off with peach slices around the perimeter. This was an excellent starter with the ingredients combining really well.

Starter

For the main course I went for the rabbit. I chose this primarily as I had never seen 'lapin' before on a Hong Kong menu. As much as I would like to say it tasted like chicken, it was lean so tasted more like turkey. Thin rolls of cannelloni that were stuffed with garlic and mushroom accompanied the rabbit, which was good and filled up the dish quite nicely. It was also served with a creamy mash potato that was a bit on the cold side. 

Rabbit Main Course

For my dessert course I went for the Dessert Platter, where I chose three the three sweet items shown below. The item in the foreground is the vanilla slice, which was my favourite of that trio. They also prepared a birthday message on a white chocolate slice as shown below, for that special touch.

Dessert

All the food is beautifully presented and tasted pretty good as expected, with the beef ham starter my top pick out of the three dishes. Service is very good although they may have made that extra effort to make you feel that bit more special. The leftover bread in our basket was given to us to takeaway after a slight error in their waiting.

Whilst the decor is very upmarket it did feel slightly cramped when the waiters were pushing the dessert trolley around. There was also a fly buzzing in our vicinity, which is a little disconcerting considering the high quality establishment we were in. A little quirk is that the toilets have an automatic door, which did not add that great benefit though.

All in all, if you save up and want to splash out for an expensive lunch, this is not a bad place at all to go to.

Scores:
Food: 4/5
Presentation: 5/5
Service: 4/5
Setting: 4/5

Total: 17/20

Cost for Set Lunch: $588 a head, about £50.

I ate: Set lunch, three course meal (four can be chosen at an additional price).

I drank: Heineken beer.

I wore: Hardy Amies Shirt.