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2021-05-25
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Summary: Tasty and reasonably-priced pasta, but the rest of the menu doesn't add up; wasn't worth the price we paid. You won't find these dishes anywhere else in HK, so maybe worth a visit, but don't know in what situation we'd go again. Try as many of their pastas as you can fit, at the expense of their other offeringsWhy is Italian food so expensive in Hong Kong? Go down the list from 8½, 121 BC, Carbone, Posto Pubblico, Associazione Chianti and even the Italian Club and Capo (borderline); the
Why is Italian food so expensive in Hong Kong? Go down the list from 8½, 121 BC, Carbone, Posto Pubblico, Associazione Chianti and even the Italian Club and Capo (borderline); they’re all just too pricey for what you’re getting. Fresh pasta is great sure, but most Italian food should be sort of homey and simple; why is every dish over 200$?
Anyway, with that said, I love Italian, and we do try to visit all the big places… though we usually come away a bit more broke and a lot more unsatisfied. Lucale was pretty much the same,
I’d tried many times to book Lucale and they’d always been packed, though after visiting not sure how that was possible – it’s pretty big! Plenty of seating by the front, and a large room in the back. Kind of rustic décor, which works really well, and nicely spaced out tables give the place a comfortable feel.
Here’s the menu:
The appetizers are pretty limited, but smart; who doesn’t love ham and burrata? While the pastas are mostly reasonably priced, the mains are somewhat exorbitant. Maybe I’m cheap, but at a regular Italian place, 300$ entrees better be something special – the one we had was not.
Here’s what we had
Burrata Deliziosa (300g) with 24 month aged Parma Ham
300g of Burrata means two giant balls of milky, creamy goodness. Make sure to drown it in olive oil and pepper and enjoy Lucale’s wonderful bread. We took half of it home it was so massive. Obviously delicious, but how could it not be?
Cappelletti in a Parmesan Bolognese sauce
Delicious at first, but you know when there's too much parmesan in a sauce, it becomes kind of sticky and gummy over time ? There was so much parm in here that it was quite an effort to finish. Still fantastic, just be ready to share
Chitarra spaghetti with Truffle and Pecorino
A winner - truffle in every bite without resorting to offensive and overbearing truffle oil. We made a mistake by ordering two cheese-based pastas, but this one was fantastic with the perfectly chewy spaghetti. Would probably recommend this one over the Cappelletti
Slow cooked baby cuttlefish in tomato sauce with peas and fennel
This was a real headscratcher - at 298$, i was expecting something quite elaborate, if not inspired, and instead we got a tomato-pea stew with chunks of small cuttlefish. The sauce was certainly full of seafood flavor, and delicious with the bread, but there were just SO MANY peas. The small chunks of cuttlefish were tender and not-offensive, but they take a definite backseat to the PEAS and tomato sauce. We finished it because it was 300$, but I'm not sure where the cost of this dish goes. Very odd, and I don't recommend you try it.
Overall, I think Lucale is worth visiting, if only to try the homemade pastas, which are unique, delicious and well-thought out. They're more interesting than the pastas at the Capo restaurants for example, at roughly the same price. Apart from that though; the cured meat platters are fun, but nothing special, and the one main we tried was frankly a flop. We paid just over HKD 1,000 for the two of us with no drinks (but mandatory mineral water), which seems like a lot. I might go back and limit myself just to pasta, but it seems quite a compromise. This is the state of italian food in HK though, I suppose.
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