HKK

I’m somewhat ashamed that even though I get back to England, and particularly London, relatively often I don’t take advantage of the sheer variety of cuisines on offer. To a large extent this is because I miss English food and there’s a wealth of British talent whose menus I haven’t had a chance to sample. But every so often a review or photos point to a place that demands a visit. A combination of stunning plates of food and very positive feedback were behind a Saturday lunchtime visit to HKK.

HKK is part of the Hakkasan group that started out with the eponymous restaurant in Hanway Place in 2001. Hakkasan gained a Michelin star in 2003 and has been consistently lauded as one of the best Chinese restaurants in the capital. The business has grown with a second Hakkasan in Mayfair and expansion abroad to the Middle East, United States and India. Although he serves as the Executive Chef for the group Tong Chee Hwee personally oversees the kitchen at HKK where the focus is on tasting menus designed to provide a modern slant on Cantonese cuisine. The restaurant was awarded its first Michelin star in 2013.

Don’t go expecting impressive surroundings, at least from the outside. HKK occupies the ground floor of a bland steel and glass cube on the corner of Worship St and Vandy St. The restaurant offers very little fanfare from the outside and it would be easy to walk past it without realising that it was a restaurant. Only the etched windows indicate that there might be something more than office space behind them. The dining room is hushed with net curtains cocooning it from the bar area and kitchen. The centre of the room is dominated by a large black serving station with ceramic peach lanterns (a symbol of good luck) suspended over it. The furnishing is subdued from the polite cream leather banquettes against the wall accented with brown and green cushions to the boxy black and grey chairs that face them across the simple grey-topped tables. Each table is decorated with a squat vase containing a single large white orchid. It’s all a bit hushed tone and it never fills up enough to eliminate that sense of restraint.

The lunch menus include a la carte options, a 4-course set lunch menu, a 4-course set seafood menu, a 5-course duck-based menu and an 8, 10 or 15 course tasting menu. Having another restaurant visit planned for the evening sees sense winning out over the urge to go for the full on experience. With a lurid green Chinese Mule in hand it’s time to sit back and wait for the first dish of the eight course menu to arrive.

The poulet de presse puff with taro, water chestnut and a goju berry sauce is really quite stunning too look at and it’s almost a shame to eat it. However, the pastry outer is very dry and drags it down a bit and the filling hasn't got enough about it to counter the shell. The slivers of orange peel lighten things considerably and really help overall. As starters go this is nice enough but not particularly thrilling.

Things step up markedly with the bamboo basket holding a white dish with the dim sum trilogy. It’s accompanied by a small bowl of soy sauce and a paintbrush for application. The lobster dumpling is a nice mouthful but shows too much restraint for me. The spicy lamb dumpling has a delightful flavour and a wonderful lingering heat but best of all is the squid roll whose delightful flavour is complimented by the crunch of the crispy noodle coating.

The cherry wood roasted Peking duck comes with a bit of theatre for most diners but not me. I seem to be the only person who isn’t invited to watch their being dish prepared on the central serving station. The ritual usually consists of the maitre d’ saucing the pancake in preparation for the duck carved in situ by the chef who brings the roasted duck from the kitchen. Does it matter that I don’t have an opportunity to have a stilted conversation about how the duck was prepared? Absolutely not. The immaculately prepared dish that’s placed in front of me is all that matters.  The duck breast meat is simply fantastic and is enough to justify the trip to HKK. Wonderfully tender flesh with superb crispy skin. There’s more of the skin with a salad of pea shoots, mustard cress and black sesame seeds. The pancake has more of the excellent breast meat where the vital cucumber lightens the roll. All in all a lovely course.

Next up is a soup course that keeps the momentum going nicely. Double boiled chicken soup is accompanied by a porcelain spoon with chicken meat, figs, goji and pompom mushrooms. The basic broth is a delight and additional substance comes from the ingredients stirred into it. The spongy chicken is pleasantly chewy while the goji and figs kick in hits of sweetness that help the whole dish.

The sugar snap peas with lotus root, onion slivers, water chestnut and extra spicy seafood sauce vies with the duck as my favourite course of the day. It’s an excellent mix of strong flavours and contrasting textures. The seafood sauce coats the other components and it’s sufficiently robust that there’s a risk of dominating the other elements. However, the balance is just right and the sugar snap peas are particularly good at breaking through. The rice flour nest that helps the dish look really good absorbs the seafood flavour so it becomes a subtle partner to the vegetables.

The final savoury course combines jasmine tea-smoked Wagyu beef with Japanese yam and rice wrapped in lotus leaf. The leaf is not for eating and the sticky rice is designed to hang together partners really well with the wonderfully tender beef. Sweet sauce on the meat lifts the dish further and the yam provides a welcome crispness to the dish.

Moving on to desserts, the lemon cream with citrus sable and yoghurt sorbet is a lovely light next step. The wonderful lemon cream sits on biscuit base and is coated with a thin shell of white chocolate. The wispy sorbet adds a light tartness that mitigates the richness of the white chocolate. Even the single pansy flowers plays a part by adding a refreshing hint to a really lovely dessert. 

The last course combines chocolate mousse, roasted banana, passion fruit and banana sorbet and ensures that the meal ends on a high note. It is a wonderful mix of components. The passion fruit dominates the sorbet and it is excellent for it. The intense chocolate mousse and jelly cubes are brilliant with the intensely acidic passion fruit purée cutting through their richness. The banana slices benefit from a thin caramel veneer and the small chunks of cookie with their hint of star anise and ginger give the crunch that the dish probably needs.

As lunches go, this turns out to be really rather good once the poulet de presse puff is out of the way. There are many courses that I would happily eat again once you get over how lovely each of the dishes look. Service is charming and it’s a relaxed way to pass a couple of hours before heading out to walk round London. However, it seems a shame that it’s relatively empty of customers on a Saturday lunchtime.

Overall Rating – 4/5