Last updated on December 28th, 2022 at 10:41 am
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The first time I heard about the restaurant Angelini was during one of the many summers I was in HK when I was younger. The book had Angelini on one of its first pages as a top restaurant to visit.
It wasn’t an instant great impression so I moved on. Over the years, I gradually forgot about it…until it was my 26th birthday.
I was researching potential restaurants to eat at when I came across this Vogue article.
Seeing the name Angelini again sparked my memory of what I read about many years ago.
Vogue is a reputable magazine and if it says Angelini is one of the best Italian restaurants in Hong Kong, it should be pretty decent.
That’s how I decided to pick this fine-dining Italian restaurant located inside the Kowloon Shangri-La Hotel.
Don’t get confused. There are two Shangri-las in Hong Kong – one on the Kowloon side and one on the HK side, which is where Summer Palace is.
First Impression of Angelini
The restaurant might be smaller than you expect. There are not that many tables inside.
Since we were the first customers in, we got first dibs.
Many restaurants close in the afternoon for cleaning but usually open back up at dinner time at 6 pm.
I made the mistake of believing Angelini opened at 6 pm but they open at 6:30 pm.
(There’s a hotel bakery upstairs you can check out and get some treats if you want to kill some time.)
The hostess asked if we would prefer a semi-private seating area. This seating arrangement meant that the table is somewhat isolated as it is the only table facing the restaurant.
Meanwhile, all the other tables were on the other side where they can see the HK skyline, which the restaurant boasts about on its website.
Sitting in a semi-private area does give the illusion of privacy. There are no tables next to you on either side but you can still see everything going on the other side of the restaurant.
Food At Angelini
The menu was about two pages long.
The restaurant has something called tasting options. This means you can order a dish with a smaller portion instead of a regular size dish.
This is terrific news for those who like to sample a bunch of food. The portion is smaller too so you can actually finish it all. If you like it enough to upgrade to the normal size portion, you can do that too.
1) Lobster Bisque
We ordered the lobster bisque as an appetizer. I had a few sips and it wasn’t anything special.
At first, I thought it was my sole opinion because I’m not the biggest soup fan but I asked my mom and she agreed with me.
In fact, it was a bit bitter.
Rum was a listed ingredient in the dish. Is it common to use rum in lobster bisque? I prefer no rum in my soup, please.
On the other hand, Angelini did a good job with its lobster pieces. I’ve been to many restaurants in the past where they’re too cheap with their lobster. There would be maybe only one or two tiny pieces of lobster.
Come on! It’s called lobster bisque so there must be a rule that you gotta have some lobster in the soup.
Angelini’s lobster bisque was satisfying in that sense.
Overall, the soup wasn’t bad enough to not want to drink it anymore but not good enough to order it again.
2) Ravioli Tasting Options
We ordered two tasting ravioli dishes. As you can see in the picture, when it came out, there were only 3 pieces of tortellini for each dish. It was perfect because my parents and I went as a trio. We each had one piece of ravioli.
I was excited to try the crab one. The listed ingredients were crab ravioli, salmon roe, champagne, and saffron cream sauce.
Isn’t the combination a bit special? You usually see cheese tortellini or meat tortellini in restaurants but crab tortellini? A bit rarer.
To my disappointment, it wasn’t good. The combination of flavours tasted off. I couldn’t exactly describe what it was but even my parents agreed with me.
The carbonara ravioli was much better, to our surprise.
3) Lobster Pasta
I have to commend Angelini for their lobster pieces. There was an entire lobster claw that came with this tomato-sauced pasta.
I may or may not have stolen it from my mom’s plate. Haha, sorry, mom. Love you.
Seeing a huge piece of lobster reminded me of the lobster towers at the restaurant, Fishman Lobster Clubhouse in Toronto. It’s been a while since I ate a big piece of lobster so I was pleased.
I’m going to be completely honest with you – I can’t write this part of the food review objectively because I didn’t get to taste the pasta without the tabasco.
My mom ordered this and it was supposed to be her main course but I was tempted and took a few bites. Too bad I chose to do so later because by then, she already had all this tabasco in her food. All I could taste was the spiciness.
Despite that, you can still taste the freshness of both the pasta and lobster meat. The pasta was al dente. It wasn’t too soft which was perfect.
4) Truffle Pasta
Before ordering, I seriously considered getting the normal-size plate for the crab ravioli instead of the truffle pasta.
Oh boy, am I glad I didn’t make that decision. The Tagliatelle Al Tartufo was the best dish at Angelini.
The noodles were thicker than the lobster pasta noodles so it felt like this dish had fewer noodles.
That’s the main complaint about the truffle pasta. Everything else was fantastic. The pasta itself was fresh. The sauce was creamy and there were a lot of truffles. It was like being in truffle heaven.
By the time the pasta came, my family and I already had a bunch of food but I still gobbled it up very quickly.
The sauce was so delicious that I dipped some of the bread they served into the remaining pasta sauce. I wasn’t going to let ANY of it go to waste!
Highly recommend you try this.
5) Pescato In Crosta (Patagonian Toothfish)
My dad technically ordered this dish but I did have about a third of it.
Before you think I’m a monster for eating so much of his food, he wasn’t hungry at all because he ate a bowl of wonton soup noodles before coming to meet us at Angelini.
He defended himself by saying he was starving after swimming and couldn’t wait till dinner. So he barely ate anything other than some soup, two little kinds of ravioli (one from each tasting dish), and a third of the fish (my mom also ate one-third of his fish).
The Patagonian toothfish is fresh, smooth, and silky.
I have noticed many fine-dining restaurants don’t drown their fish with sauce. It’s probably because they want customers to taste how fresh the food is. This dish is like that too. The sauce is salmoriglio, which wasn’t overwhelming.
Final Thoughts – Angelini
Good restaurants in Hong Kong can take up to weeks to get a table. That’s usually a pretty good indicator of whether or not a restaurant is good.
Although Angelini has been around for quite some time now, I was surprised to see more than half the restaurant was empty when we came here.
At first, I thought maybe 6:30 pm for dinner was still early. Maybe more people were coming later but even when we were done, the restaurant wasn’t full.
After trying this place myself, I can only say it’s okay. If you’re in the area and want some fancy food, you can consider visiting Angelini.
It’s not a restaurant I recommend people go out of their way to try nor is it a restaurant I will go eat at again in the near future (sorry Vogue!).
Now to You
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Xoxo,
Nicole