Holly Brown

I came here on a whim when my friend had this craving for dessert. I was under the impression that Holly Brown was nothing more than an overpriced coffee shop that also happened to serve ice cream, but I was wrong.
This place is great! They create gelato sundaes in front of you, in a way similar to how the cold stone creamery does things, (i.e. scoop the ice cream onto a counter that’s freezing cold, mash the toppings into the gelato as you shape it, then roll the ice cream back up into a ball and serve it to the customer.) For what I paid, I had a very generous portion, particularly in Hong Kong standards, and that gelato was great too!
While the service from the barista was not superb, in that it was clear he wasn’t the most effective communicator, when he simply left another customer’s order on a counter without notifying him, this place is really pretty good, afterall customer service has never been a core value in Hong Kong’s service sector (as much as they claim that it is), so I could at most only dock one star off for that.

Holly Brown is expanding like crazy. I used to work right above it, and watched it open its first shop.
I remember when they first opened, the quality was so utterly important. They hired the barista who won multiple competitions, their branding was on the spot, the boss was there all the time roasting coffee, their gelato was yummy.
Three years later… they have at least 8 stores around town. I find that their standards are going down a bit. They are not as consistent with their branding and I personally think they are expanding a little too quickly.
The coffee isn’t the same as all the other stores. It is a bit of a hit and miss. Sometimes it’s better, sometimes, it’s mediocre.
Their gelato portions got smaller too I think. They used to be extremely generous — okay to be fair, I haven’t been back to the Central store for a while — but this one in Causeway, I think their portions got smaller and they don’t use as much condiments as they used to.
This location is situated in the shopping mall, making it less comfortable than the Stanley Street branch as well. There really isn’t much ambience as it is amidst Hysan Place. There are too many people walking around, making it too loud to have a chat with friends.
Hopefully their standards will return to how they used to be. I really like the branding and this café, I miss the quality of what it started out to be.