Harvey Nichols Fourth Floor Restaurant

While the food was good and our group enjoyed ourselves, the service just wasn’t up to snuff.
ATMOSPHERE:
Tucked away in the Harvey Nichols store, you could easily shop here without ever realizing there’s a restaurant. The long room was dark with floors that lit up. I’m not really sure what type of vibe they were going for but the overall environment was odd.
SERVICE:
I don’t know if their wine supplier had a special going on but our server was super pushy with the wine. As soon as we sat down he tried to get us wine — he didn’t ask what we’d like or even offer us a wine list he just assumed we wanted wine. When asking for drink menus, he brought just one (for a table of six). When our mains came he again tried to push wine on us. After the meal as well. We ordered enough drinks that the restaurant was certainly making money, so I don’t know why our waiter couldn’t just settle down a bit.
DRINKS:
The drinks were pretty good especially and there were good options if you want something light and fruity. For something a bit heartier, but that won’t overpower your food, Harvey Nichols carries a series of Rosebank — a lowland whisky from a producer that closed in the 1980s. It was a nice find with a very fair price point.
FOOD:
If you’re looking for foie gras, you’ve come to the right place. The foie gras starter comes in traditional and ice cream form (the ice cream was interesting but didn’t thrill me) while you can also get a foie gras terrine starter. Virtually all of the meat dishes come with a bit of seared foie gras (not as good as in the starter), which really made for some goose liver overload. My duck breast was a bit bland but the veggies cut into tiny dots added a lot of brightness.

It seemed like a great concept at the beginning: a café hidden (literally) in a posh department store in Central where tai tais can tea after a tiring (!) afternoon of shopping. Except it’s situated within steps from the Hong Kong institution Landmark Café as well as MO Bar, happy hour central for the fashion/​banking crowd, as such somehow it seemed to be always empty.
In fact, it’s so empty that it seems that the establishment doesn’t really care for the existing few customers they have at any given time. I’m not talking about the service (which is attentive) nor the food (which is passible).
I’m talking about the ambience, as it seems that every time I enter the restaurant during the afternoon, it’s dimly lit, perhaps for ambience, but it certainly felt like they are trying to save on the electric bill. Some tables are not cleared despite there are only 3 tables of customers and 4 service staff. I would also like to add that while the staff are very attentive, it’s the lack of customers that is driving them to slack off.
Ambience: check. Service: check. Now the food. The food is standard afternoon tea fare (small sweets and savories stacked high with a cup of tea for each.) food is not bad, but in gatherings like these it’s always an afterthought as the gossips are the main course. Nothing to write home about but I remember there to be more sweets than savories– not really my thing but hey, if sweets rock your boat.
Although it may at times seem like an abandoned ghost corner in the buzzing department store, this arrangement works very well for me. Many a times I would frantically dash up for a table for an impromptu afternoon tea when I couldn’t get a table anywhere else. And this place never lets me down. Ever.