A.O.C. Eat & Drink
The Ardent Gourmet
Restaurant Review: A.O.C. Eat & Drink
“Unfrilly French food, no worship required”
October 19, 2018
It is the simple dishes that test a cook. Roast chicken, an omelet, a sandwich. The simplicity leaves nowhere to hide. You either nail it or, like singing flat, it’s obviously off.
A salad with vinaigrette is as simple as it gets. After all, it’s just a green dressed with oil and vinegar. And for this reason, it is one of the most challenging dishes, rarely interesting let alone exciting. Not so at A.O.C. Eat & Drink in Wan Chai helmed by Chef Stephan Guillas. Oil (grapeseed?), balsamic, honey, mustard, and chopped shallot, his vinaigrette makes your eyes widen. You wish you could buy jars of it to take home. It moistens arugula with a few sliced cherry tomatoes (not tomatoes confit as the menu states). In the middle, like Jabba the Hutt, sits a large burrata, swabbed with a basil salsa whom you and your wife make short work of before he can fall into an eternal pit of doom which would require you to jump in after him, he’s that delicious. Creamy, crisp, bitter, acidic, sweet, herbal, with an aria of garlic from the salsa, clearly a sharp chefy intelligence is at work here.
A buratta like Jabba the Hutt. We devoured it.
If vinaigrette is violin, foie gras is cello, and Chef Guillas plays the deep notes just as well as the high. Several simple slices of house-made foie gras torchon, dappled fetchingly at the edges with congealed duck fat, served with warm cranberry bread, fig chutney and a bit of sea salt. The reason foie gras has been exalted since at least the time of the Romans is made manifest here, a fair trade for your health and longevity. Though in fact you are drinking good champagne which the restaurant sells at a reasonable price, ordering a glass of their luscious sauterne (the most amorous of wines) to go with the foie gras (the most amorous of foods) would be no mistake.
Amorous Foie Gras
Truth be told you’re full, but caught up by the enthusiasm for two excellent dishes, you order the cod. Fresh as can be, it is cooked ‘a point’, with the satisfying texture of fried parmesan (and breadcrumbs?) on one side. It’s served in a hazelnut sauce with squash and mushrooms and a note of lemon. Only a sure hand could make such a mélange work, and it does.
Delicious cod with squash, mushroom, hazelnut sauce.
Finally, a Rum Baba with fresh pineapple and Chantilly cream splashed with rum tableside by your waitress. It is worth the finger wounds of the fork fight that ensues.
Rum Baba
The two women serving were attentive and helpful though they did not seem particularly knowledgeable about the food or wine. But, A.O.C. Eat & Drink is so low key that this hardly mattered, especially since they let you taste the champagne (also available by the glass) and dessert wine before ordering.
The interior is plain, comfortable, comforting.
Don’t go here for lightning bolts. Don’t go here to entertain the ambassador. It’s not that kind of restaurant nor does it aim to be. Go if you’re hankering for delicious, unfrilly French food, no worship required. It’s a good place to argue philosophy or make moony eyes.
A little voice had whispered to them that it was your birthday and they brought a piece of tarte tatin with vanilla ice cream on the house. How kind.
A.O.C.
Rating (on a scale of 0 to 5)
Food: 4
Ambiance: 3 (for a bistro)
Service: 3
Overall Value: 4
A.O.C. EAT & DRINK
15 McGregor St, Wan Chai, Hong Kong
+852 2479 6833