Mauro Colagreco’s talent is boundless, and so, it seems, are his ambitions beyond the French Riviera. Though I never made it to Mirazur, once crowned the #1 restaurant in the world, I didn’t expect the ingenuity — as in salt-baked beetroot with caviar; or oysters with shallot cream and pear — to travel 6,000 miles intact. I also didn’t expect how soft the landing would be in Hong Kong.
At Plaisance, which Colagreco opened two years ago, the tells of a neglected child are there before the food arrives: a menu frayed at the spine; random stools cluttering the entrance; loud marine motifs throughout the restaurant; and a wide bank of windows staring at a sterile light installation. On better days, the restaurant’s decor may recall a rec lounge at a Royal Caribbean; on others, a Delta club designed by someone who’s spent too much time near, or under, the ocean. If your mind wanders, the studied menu reels it back with prized names, like Racan Pigeon, making few concessions to the local palate.
You’ll also find a menu that fixates on fruit in nearly every dish. Sweet Botan ebi is flanked by little curls of sweet carrot in a pool of even sweeter vinaigrette; an otherwise pristine Hokkaido scallop blighted by nondescript tropical fruit; beautiful persimmons brûléed until their sugars steamroll everything in its wake — pigeon, in this case.
To Plaisance’s credit, the execution is rarely at fault: except for gritty shortcrust pastry, beetroot ‘caviar’ that promises brightness that never comes, and underseasoned jus, that silky pigeon was a ruddy pink shielded by well-browned, well-rendered skin. And while their Spanish mackerel makes an unfortunate case that the safer overtures land better (i.e. fatty fish over a sauce rammed with butter and roe), the cooking is precise, and I swooned over dessert, which was (gently) sweet Jerusalem artichoke under a bloom of vanilla espuma.
The dessert convinces me that there are bright spots beyond the hospitality, which is kind and earnest and refreshingly devoid of airs. I’ll return when there are fewer plates sitting between the ideas.
