I went to dinner at La Fête with a little bit of hesitation. We only went there because I couldn’t get a table at Gong Guan and we wanted to go to a conveniently located private kitchen. The review in the HK Magazine had been a bit ambivalent and while the occasion was fun, the food at the only other French private kitchen I’d been to, Le Blanc, was pretty poor.
My little bit of hesitation turned into quite serious regret when we arrived at the stated address and completely failed to find the entrance. The address was advertised as being St Francis Street but the door to the apartment block was locked and the intercom not working. All in all, not a good start. Anyway, eventually, after walking through a park to see if there was another entrance, we found the main entrance which was round the back of the building, nowhere near St Francis Street. Quite serious regret was now turning to abject fear of impending disaster.
With trepidation we walked into the dining room. The décor is quite similar to Le Blanc in terms of the obsession with household clutter and the enthusiasm for twigs attached to the ceiling but, unlike the private dining rooms of Le Blanc, La Fête has more of a bistro feel to it with good sized tables spread around the room. The tables were beautifully laid out in a rustic fashion with a large cold platter of shellfish as the centrepiece. As the attentive waiting staff hurriedly put our bottles of white into chill and brought us bread and pâté to start, my fears of culinary disaster started to subside.
Don’t get me wrong, the meal was not perfect but it was pretty good. The mountain of shellfish with the accompanying dressing of half olive oil and half crushed garlic was definitely the star of the show but the other five courses were also quite good - not haute cuisine but good rustic bistro fayre. The pork chops were particularly good, beautifully cooked and full of flavour. The only course which people weren’t convinced by was the mushroom soup which people felt was a bit take-it-or-leave-it.
At HKD 380 for six courses it represents pretty good value and was certainly significantly better than Le Blanc. My friend E.L. even rated it higher than Gong Guan - I can’t agree in terms of food but I do concede in terms of atmosphere and service. As with all these things, it is partly the company that makes a dining experience and it was a particularly raucous evening that night (mainly our table, admittedly) which probably added to the atmosphere. All in all, I’d say worth a try…
La Fête
1/F Block 3, Hoover Towers
15 St Francis Street
(but actually entrance on Kwong Ming Street)
Tel: 2893 5891
Comments