8 1/2 Otto e Mezzo BOMBANA

Great meal.
Service was impeccable & personal.
They made adjustments for my wife who is gluten intolerant with no fuss or a second glance.
The Veal Milanese was immense so be warned.
Will be back.

The food is here is good, but no surprise that is a shame for a 3 Michelin-​starred restaurant. I personally recommend truffle with risotto, and the Wagyu steak.

Our experience here is amazing. The food was great. This place makes the best truffle linguine in the world.

My first 3 Michelin-​star meal! I never thought I’d come here, but a last minute lunch appointment with a friend brought me here. At 1:30pm, a majority of the tables were still filled.
My order — a 4-​course set lunch HK$ 1280
Lobster salad — a light and delicate salad.
Red king prawn pasta — perfect al dente pasta.
Fassone veal tenderloin — the highlight of my meal — the veal was cooked sous vide, juicy and tender.
Dessert: dark chocolate gelato
Friend’s meal:
— Seared tuna belly topped with caviar — superb!
— Red king prawn pasta
— Scallops
— Fresh seasonal fruits
If the pasta dishes came with truffle shavings, I wouldn’t mind paying this much. We came at the end of truffle season so… A solid meal nevertheless, the plating was beautiful. However, it would take a very special occasion for me to return to 8 ½.

Our dining experience at OeM Bambana was excellent. But by no means was this a 3-​Star Michelin restaurant! The 4 of us who were eating together were unanimously agreed on this point. Great food. Great service, but the Michelin raters were bribed or drunk when they gave their rating.
The service was not impeccable. The price fixe menu was not exciting. The food presentation was not near that of a 3-​Star restaurant. Honestly, it was a let-​down. I would have much rather spent the money on Robuchon or Bön Innovation.
It was a good meal, but I won’t be returning to Ozzo again. Michelin got it wrong in giving them 3 stars.

Bartenders were amazing, their cocktails on point and every dish we had was excellent.

A confused meal with absentee service with a suburban-​mall feel to it, I am utterly confounded about how this place earned or keeps its 3-​Michelin-​Star status. Avoid.
Service is absentee to the point of coldness, especially during a busy weekday lunch rush. Don’t expect anyone to spend a second explaining the dishes origins, ingredients, or even name.
Many of the dishes make sense, but then again many are carelessly cooked and served. You’re definitely paying 3-​star money to eat here, so you should expect more.
If you’re looking for a special place, go to Bo Innovation; skip this place.
Detailed, course-​by-​course review is here if you’re interested:

Hong Kong is an interesting place. The food is terrible and very expensive everywhere, so in comparison, this place is very good. That said, I have no idea how it has three Michelin stars. A (good) local Italian restaurant in New Jersey easily competes with this. There are literally countless better Italian restaurants in New York than this place– yet this gets not one, not two, but three Michelin stars. That’s crazy. It’s it’s expensive, but so is everything else in Hong Kong so I can’t really ding it for that. Service was very average though which is something they should have down.

This place is terrible if you come to taste 3 Michelin experience. The service is average and the food as good as any Italian food in my neighbourhood. But then they have the audacity to charge you 1,300 HKD. The dessert made me want to throw up all I had eaten before which to be honest, wouldn’t have been such a bad thing. Michelin Guide needs to wake up and smell the coffee, as long as it is not the coffee at this place. I recommend to give this place a try only if the other alternative is to burn your cash.
This place made me feel that Unilocal should have a 0 star option.

My husband and I were looking for a world class dining experience while in HK for our honeymoon so we opted to try a few michelin rated restaurants. We are from LA where there is some insanely delicious italian everywhere you look so that may have colored our experience. The both of us have eaten at a good amount of Michelin rated restaurants and this meal and experience left us wondering why this restaurant should be considered michelin at all. First, the ambiance had us thinking we should just leave from the start of our dinner. It’s in the mall and we get that many restaurants are in the malls in HK but they put us in this claustrophobic space with a few tables behind the bar with these decorated mirrored walls — it had a bit of that unsettling fun-​house effect. My husband had a chopin martini with a twist, and I had champagne. They took forever to bring the simple drinks, and they arrived long after the bread was brought to our table. The bread… how disappointing. It seemed dry and stale and the flatbread was overly greasy like it was deep fried but also stale — not really worth the calories in taste. The service was lackluster. The staff had little to no excitement about the food or menu — we felt like we were at any old restaurant. We shared the paparadelle bolognese and I think it was and that was nice, you could tell the pasta was handmade, but overall not a memorable dish. My husband said his entrée was just ok, and my Veal was dry and overly fried which I asked ahead of time if it was very thick with the breading to which they replied oh no it’s very lightly battered… so confused because it was the most thickly breaded greasy veal I’ve had. The flavor was acceptable and the portion was very generous. (though diners looking for the michelin experience are usually looking for quality over quantity) However, it came with a side of these wilted tomatoes drenched in olive oil with acrid herbs, which I thought were quite gross honestly. Disappointed. If you’re looking for high-​end fine dining in HK, I would pass on Otto e Mezzo.

What a fantastic place!
The setting is amazing. It is good to have a fine dinning experience as well as to have some after work cocktails.
The quality of the food is exceptional. Just like being in Italia.
The cocktail list is interesting and nicely surprising.
The menu is fantastic!!!
Thanks Chef

This is where you come on an expense account. Read that as you want, but no one comes here without thinking they will spend some serious dough. The a la carte menu consists of nothing you haven’t heard of before. There’s no doubt that the food is top notch. Execution is wonderful and service is more than willing to assist. The confit egg is nothing short of luxury, with morel mushrooms and a perfectly plump egg in the middle. I can quite possibly say that this is one of the best egg dishes I have ever had. Pasta on the other hand is nothing to write home about. Good? Yes. Stellar? In execution, but lacks originality. It does the trick and reminds me of the last time I was in Italy, but it’s non-​regional — it’s the abridged version of Italy. Make friends with the ever-​present chef and you’ll no doubt impress your dining companions.
4 stars. I like it. Bring a client, bring a first date, but save your date night dough.

Very good dinning experience. Impressive Italian wine selection.

3 michelin now, light lunch of delicate proportions. white asparagus and iberico. black cod with perfect flavors, but may leave you hungry. excellent presentation and complex subtleties in the dishes. perfect business lunch.

8 ½ Otto e Mezzo BOMBANA is the only Italian restaurant outside of Italy to have earned the coveted Michelin 3 stars, so I have been itching to try it for a few years. This was one of the hardest restaurant to get a reservation to, I have been trying to get a table here my previous 2 trips and was unable to, but finally I got a table on the LAST NIGHT of my current trip to Hong Kong!!!
My best buddy in HK joined me with another guest and we all got the 5 course degustation menu. We all knew about the famous roasted octopus and the various white truffles dishes, so after a brief study of the menu, we decided to get the octopus to share (only $ 280 HK! Roughly $ 36 US) and skip the various white truffle items (pretty much all $ 880 HK ~ $ 115 US a bit high considering the «cheap dinner» at Robuchon is $ 1080 HK!!!). Here is a breakdown of the meal:
Bread: As I am not a big fan of olive oil and vinegar, I didn’t have much of the bread here. The bread stick was okay, and I always like the flakey sheet of
Amuse: diced ham on favs bean purée, the ham was not particularly tasty, but the texture contrasts well with the rich purée. Not particularly impressed, the amuse at Robuchon wins by a mile.
1^st. Course: Seared scallops on mixed green salad with light Italian dressing and topped with caviar. Perfectly seared scallops, slightly raw in the middle the way I liked it, with the lovely briny taste of the ocean and a slight peppery taste that stings the tongue. The caviar used is top notch osetra caviar, much better than the so-​called «French Imperial» caviar used at Robuchon that doesn’t mean jackshit. The green salad was fresh but nothing spectacular, though the earthy greens do contrast well with the taste of the sea.
1.5^th course: Roasted octopus and artichoke. Wow, I cannot fathom how one can make the texture of octopus and artichoke become like this. This has the unmistakable taste of octopus but the damned thing felt like the consistency of a tender piece of chicken when you are chewing on it!!! The artichoke was tender and tasted like MUSHROOM!!! An order of this comes with 6 pieces of it and we each got 2 pieces, but my friend’s guest was not impressed by this masterpiece so I got an extra piece.
2^nd course: Lobster tagliolini, excellent pasta dish. Perfectly cooked with the al dente texture that is so essential to a good pasta. Comparable to the classic lobster bolognese at my favourite L.A. restaurant Melisse. I would be hard pressed to pick a favourite but I think I might be leaning towards maestro Bombana at the moment.
3^rd course: Some kind of sausage with a rich red wine sauce on a bed of beans and some mystery diced meat. Our snooty waitress was not available to answer our question about this dish, so all I can say is this taste like really tender SPAM. My friend was not amused by this dish, but I find this really amusing. Again, I would never expect sausage to taste like SPAM (albeit melt in the mouth tender!!!), and the texture of the beans contrasted with «sausage» was wonderful. The mystery meat cube packs a wallop of flavours.
4^th course: 2 choices of meats are offered for this course. The elk steak or the veal. Compared to the amazing food served before, the meat courses are comparatively disappointing. Sure, the veal (what I got) was very tender. But it lacked the flair and oomph of the previous courses. This is also served in a favs bean purée, something we already got as the amuse bouche. The potato cubes were to tiny and I think I needed more starch. I also would have like a little more of the chanterelle mushrooms. My friend let me tried a bit of his elk steak, and I was surprised by how «ungamey» it tasted. Sure it was nowhere near as tender as the veal, but I enjoyed the heavier meaty taste. I should have ordered the elk instead. Oh, well.
5^th course: dessert was chestnut paste on green apple ice cream under some coconut cream. Extremely pedestrian dessert after an exquisite meal. I was very disappointed by this mishmash randomly piled on piece of crap dessert. Nothing like desserts at Robuchon.
Petite fours: blood orange jelly, chocolate and nut crunch, biscotti. Good but again nothing special.
Tea/​coffee: I got some earl grey. Nothing special, I prefer perfumed tea but they don’t have any of my faves (St. Valentine’s or St. Marc’s).
Service: Rather uppity probably because we didn’t order wine, but the markup of wines in Hong Kong can be quite insane. Kept filling us up with expensive bottled water when I asked for regular water. General nose high up in the air arrogance, incredible ‘tude.
I suppose after the highs of the appetizers and pasta it was hard not to be disappointed by the desserts and only good main course, however, the mark of a true Michelin 3 star restaurant for me is it has to be superb in every facet. For me, 8 ½ failed in this regard. Price was reasonable ($ 1295 HK for degustation menu, about $ 170 US). 4 stars.

Food is good. However, the pasta in the tasting menu was stale, mushroom soup was plain. Alba truffle egg was amazing.

This Michelin 2 star establishment certainly comes with a hefty price tag, but it is, in my opinion, one of the best Italian restaurants in Hong Kong for those who are looking to come for a special treat.
I have been here on two separate occasions, both times for drinks and small bites. The service is top notch and the ambiance is intimate and low key.
Don’t be fooled by the dainty looking cocktail connotations they serve here as one drink can seriously get you going for the night!
Drinks wise, I’ve had the opportunity to try their apple martini, old fashioned and whiskey sours. They were all equally divine.
Food wise, for all your truffle lovers out there, Otto’s white truffle risotto offers obscenely generous shavings of white truffle, which is virtually unheard of in other fine dining establishments of the same caliber, but greatly appreciated nonetheless. The risotto in this dish merely serves as a garnish to compliment the real star of the dish, the white truffles, that is.
Looking forward to be back for more Saluting and more great get-​togethers here !

What a delicious meal! The BF and I went on Valentine’s Day. We picked this restaurant because we hear this is the only Italian restaurant outside of Italy to be awarded three michelin stars. If its good enough for Michelin, its good enough for us. Boy were we in for a treat!
Booking was very simple. Because it was Valentine’s Day, a set menu was offered. An 8 course meal that did not disappoint. We had booked about a month in advance. It is recommended to book this restaurant as soon as possible as they are usually a full house every night.
The mood of the space was fantastic. A bit dark and very warm… perfect for a romantic night with your love. We were brought to our table which had a nice view of Central. Then, the wine… and the food! =D
Wow! Truffles galore! Everything tasted exquisite. The wine that was recommended to us was paired very nicely with our meal. We ate and ate and ate some more. Our smiles were ear to ear. I can’t wait to go back and try their a la carte menu.
All the staff here are extremely professional and kind. They are also very mindful of their clients. Our wine glasses and water were never empty. When we needed their attention, there was always a staff ready to help.