I've known of the legend of Joel Robuchon for many years, being the most decorated French chef in…read morethe Michelin guide with over 30 Michelin stars to his name. Luckily for me, the L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon in Hong Kong is 3 Michelin stars and also affordable (relative to its reputation). I decided to come here for lunch with my wife as my first ever 3 Michelin star experience.
I reserved a lunch reservation about a month in advance. The restaurant is very romantic and fancy. We were seated at a bar style counter, and we were escorted to our seats.
The staff were all very attentive. Many were multi-lingual in Cantonese, Mandarin, and English. We ended up each ordering the lowest cost lunch tasting menu with one amuse bouche, one appetizer, one soup, one entree, and a dessert.
We also each got a drink. I got a mocktail with lychee and mint which was an amazing palate cleanser between courses.
The amuse bouche was a cracker with uni on top. The uni was very soft like Hokkaido uni and the cracker went well with the soft texture of the uni.
We had a complimentary bread basket with a variety of different breads, all of which were amazing. I loved the croissants.
For my own appetizer I chose the salmon caviar. I've never had that much caviar in my life in one sitting, it was amazing. My wife got the yellowtail carpaccio which was also amazing.
The soup was a mushroom style soup with foam and a single matsutake mushroom. Soup was savory, rich, and a delight to the senses.
We both got the pigeon entree. I'd never had pigeon before, my wife did but said she did not like it before. She loved this pigeon though, which was cooked slightly on the rarer to medium rare side. The pigeon was super soft. It was also wrapped with foie gras which made it decadent and rich.
For dessert I chose coffee and also the coffee ice cream dessert with gelato, coffee crumble, and coffee jelly. Super rich but quite tasty. The coffee also came with a variety of small sweet snacks.
Joel Robuchon truly lived up to its hype, and was well worth the cost. I will definitely come back.