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| DB x MO Dim Sum (1) |
Right. Let me just say this upfront: I went to the media tasting at Terrace Boulud expecting, well, a media tasting. You know the drill. A few canapes, a bit of bubbly, someone hands you a press release thicker than a Tolstoy novel, you smile at the PRs, you smile at the chef, everyone smiles at everyone else, and you go home. Standard.
What I did NOT expect was to walk into what is essentially the most glamorous open-air living room in Hong Kong and find myself surrounded by what appeared to be the entire Central business district having the time of its life on a Tuesday. CEOs? Check. Heads of banks - plural - doing that thing where they pretend they're just casually having lunch but their Brioni suits suggest otherwise? Check. The fashion industry contingent, impeccably turned out, doing that impossible thing where they look both effortless and expensive? Also check. Suits, gloriously expensive suits, everywhere. It was a media tasting that looked more like the lunch scene from a very well-funded but poorly executed Netflix drama. The kind where everyone has cheekbones and nobody discusses their salary out loud but you just... know.
And this, right here, is the thing about Terrace Boulud. It hasn't even been open that long and it's already become the place to be seen. The one where Hong Kong's moneyed, connected, and frankly-rather-fabulous choose to be seen. And honestly? Standing on that rooftop above Landmark Prince's, with the glittering geometry of Kowloon's skyline across the harbour and the towers of TST shimmering in the distance, you understand immediately why. The view is, without a hint of exaggeration, one of the best in this city. And this is a city that takes its views seriously. The drama of Hong Kong Island's skyscrapers on one side, the sweep toward TST and beyond on the other — it's the kind of sight that makes you put your fork down mid-bite just to stare. Briefly. Because then the food arrives and priorities reset.
Because oh, the food. The food!
Daniel Boulud — the man behind some of the most celebrated restaurants in New York and beyond — has brought his whole French brasserie heart to this rooftop, and Executive Chef Aurelie Altemaire is running the kitchen with what can only be described as joyful precision. The menu is guided by what Boulud calls his four culinary muses: La Tradition, La Saison, Le Potager, Le Voyage. And then - and this is the bit that makes Terrace Boulud genuinely singular - Hong Kong gets to be the fifth muse. Not a footnote. A muse.
That fifth muse shows up in the DB x MO Dim Sum, a daily-changing selection created exclusively for this restaurant, existing nowhere else in the entire Boulud restaurant group. We had, among others, the Hong Kong shrimp har gow - and calling this a har gow almost feels reductive. Plump, delicate, steamed to a translucent silk, served with a house XO sauce that has enough umami depth to make you briefly reconsider everything you thought you knew about dipping sauce. Then the Lyon xiaolongbao - pig collar and truffle, the whole thing a nod to the legendary truffle soup of Paul Bocuse, reimagined as a soup dumpling. You bite in, the broth releases, and somewhere in Lyon a ghost is nodding approvingly. The Bangkok shu mai brings lemongrass and chilli and fresh herbs into a wrapper tinted faintly green, juicy and aromatic, the kind of thing that makes you reach for a second before you've finished the first. These dim sum are not fusion for fusion's sake. They are genuinely thoughtful, technically accomplished, and utterly delicious. Yummmm doesn't quite cover it but: Yummmm.
The set lunch - Menu Déjeuner, available daily - is the kind of menu a proper brasserie should have. The Bisque Tomatée, a tomato and lobster soup crowned with a lobster-stuffed zucchini flower, is precise and deeply satisfying; it tastes expensive in the best possible way, the kind of dish you'd order twice if the rest of the menu weren't equally compelling. The Crispy Risotto with reblochon emulsion and green asparagus is, quietly, one of the most impressive things I've eaten this year - it shouldn't work as well as it does, the crisp giving way to the creamy with an elegance that feels almost architectural. King Salmon poached in champagne sauce with smoked salmon roe is the kind of dish that sounds almost simple until you eat it and realise nothing about this is simple.
For the meat contingent: the Australian Angus Cube Roll with French fries and pepper sauce is a brasserie classic done with full conviction, and the Snake River Farm Pork Tenderloin with sauce diable has a sauce so well-judged you'll want to ask for bread just to chase it around the plate. The Truffle Mash, listed as a side, has apparently already become the kitchen's most-requested extra. Try it and you'll understand why. The truffle is present but not shouty; the mash itself is pillow-like and dangerously good.
Then there is the duck. The Canard | Orange - a riff on the eternal Canard à l'Orange - arrives from locally sourced duck dry-aged for up to fourteen days, roasted on the bone, finished with a honey and spice glaze that combines cinnamon, cumin, Sichuan pepper, black pepper, pink peppercorn and cardamom. The orange sauce is built from roasted duck jus and is every bit as deep and complex as it sounds. This dish is at once completely classic and entirely its own thing, which is arguably the highest compliment you can pay a dish.
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| Glace A L'talienne - Pistachio-forest berry |
And for pudding - the soft serve. The Glace a L'Italienne, inspired by the sundae at Daniel Boulud's La Tête d'Or in New York, arrives in rotating combinations: pistachio with mixed berry sorbet (dairy-free, for those who notice these things), or chocolate and vanilla. Pure pistachio paste, real vanilla pods, rich dark chocolate. All made in-house. All needlessly good for what is, technically, ice cream. The pistachio one in particular stopped conversation at the table. That's a high bar to clear.
If there is a single, solitary complaint - and I am duty-bound to find one - it is this: the portions are too generous. There. I said it. Modern restaurants have spent the last decade perfecting the art of serving something the size of a dental floss packet and calling it a main course, Terrace Boulud turns up with actual, honest-to-goodness generous plates that leave you full. Scandalous. The outrage. By the third course you will be making noises that are incompatible with the elegant surroundings, loosening things, reconsidering life choices. You have been warned.
Throughout May, the French GourMay [gourmet geddit?!] menu adds Alpine warmth to proceedings: a Burger Savoyard with Australian Wagyu, darphin potato and melted raclette cheese; the Tartiflette, that magnificently rib-sticking Alpine gratin of charlotte potatoes, smoked pancetta and reblochon. Savoie wines poured by the glass - from magnum, naturally, because why wouldn't you - accompany it all. The Domaine Fabien Trosset Mondeuse is a particular find: juicy, spiced, absolutely made for a long afternoon on a terrace with good company and no afternoon meetings.
Terrace Boulud is, in the truest sense of the word, an experience. Not a meal with a view, but a whole vibe... the room, the rooftop, the skyline, the food, the energy of a room full of people who are absolutely exactly where they want to be. The cooking is technically accomplished, deeply pleasurable, and has a genuine soul to it; French at its bones, but the musculature is woven with Hong Kong-ness, Chinois-chic on a palatable plate.
And I will be presumptuous enough to state; Michelin is going to come knocking. It's not a question of if. It's when. The food is already there. The room is already there. The consistency is already there, at a media tasting no less, which is where you learn the truth, because when the cameras are on and the journalists are taking notes, what you get is what they want you to see. And what I saw was a kitchen that already knows exactly what it is.
Watch this space. But book first. Because clearly, all of Central already has.
Terrace Boulud by Mandarin Oriental, Landmark Prince's, Central, Hong Kong.
Reservations: terraceboulud@mohg.com
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