A Michelin-starred Lunch at The Kitchen in the Grand Lisboa Macau
- brittanypanter
- 2015年9月30日
- 讀畢需時 4 分鐘
Macau isn’t exactly littered with steakhouses. Between Morton's, Copa and The Kitchen there aren’t really that many other options, so when our inner carnivore started stirring last week and we decided to satiate the beast with a trip to The Kitchen, a one Michelin-star restaurant located on the third floor of the Grand Lisboa.
Photo: The Kitchen interior
The décor of The Kitchen is pretty toned down by Grand Lisboa standards, with the flashiest part of the whole restaurant being the men’s toilets (which features a tunnel of flying money when the hand dryer is activated) and the large gold cow sculpture (which doubles as a bar) at the entrance. Piebald material hangs on the walls of the entrance and large hunks of meat are showcased right behind the host stand.
Photo: The meat on display will no doubt get your appetite going
Natural light afforded by the large windows at the rear of the small 57-seat restaurant add a very welcome brightness which can be hard to come across in Macau. The restaurant has a sort of open kitchen that allows diners to watch the chefs as they grill steaks and pull freshly baked bread and pizzas from the ovens. There is also a sushi bar with six seats.
The set lunch menu is one of the best value Michelin-starred meals you will get anywhere. There are three different sets (MOP380+ / MOP480+ / MOP580+) with each one including a choice of as much as you can eat from the salad bar or a starter (our advice would be to go for the salad bar), a main course (steak, fish, seafood or poultry) with two vegetable sides, as well as dessert with coffee or tea.
Service is attentive from the moment you sit down to the time you leave, with at least three servers keeping an eye on our table during our visit.
Photo: The salad bar features a large vareity of vegetables, cold cuts, dressing and toppings
We were very impressed with our first pass at the salad bar. A popular fixture in American style steakhouses, salad bars are quite rare in Macau (outside buffet restaurants), and so to have one as well stocked as this one is a real treat.
A few things that we particularly enjoyed at the salad bar included buffalo mozzarella, Parma ham, artichoke, hearts of palm, five different varieties of cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, and dozens of dressings and toppings. Be sure to come with an appetite as one visit to the salad bar will not be enough to sample the range. (The salad bar is an option in its own right, but at MOP360+ you may as well enjoy a lunch set.)
We returned to the table to find two hot loaves of freshly baked bread (country style and the surprising pleasant mint and chocolate served with plain and mango butters) waiting for us. Eating mint chocolate bread smeared with mango butter before it is time for dessert sounds strange, but we promise it’s good. We – there were two of us - proved as much by polishing the whole loaf off.
While the lunch set is easily enough food, especially if you choose the salad bar, pizza is one of The Kitchen’s signature offers. If you would prefer to go a la carte there are plenty of choices on the menu, including three types of pizza.
Photo: The Jewish Mother's pizza is topped with smoked salmon and caviar giving it a hefty price tag of MOP650
The Jewish Mother’s pizza (MOP650+) was as interesting as it sounds. The crispy base was topped with cream cheese, smoked salmon and caviar. Generous dollops of caviar sit atop rolled pieces of salmon which in turn sit on top of the cream cheese-covered base. Easily the most expensive pizza we’ve ever had, after it was finished we felt it was time for another small plate of buffalo mozzarella and sun-dried tomatoes. Our main course arrived thanks to the attentive staff checked with us to ensure we were finished visiting the salad bar.
Photo: Each entree in the lunch set is served with a choice of two vegetables and a sauce
For our main courses we went with boneless US short rib and USDA prime sirloin. Both were incredibly flavorful, but if we were to visit again we would go for the sirloin over the short rib. Both were further enhanced by a delicious béarnaise sauce (other recommended sauces for these dishes were red wine and forest mushroom ragout). For our sides we went for a baked Idaho potato (served with optional sour cream, chives and bacon) and small portions of creamed spinach, glazed carrots, and gratinated broccoli.
Each entree also comes with a wine pairing option, but there is a wine expert on hand to recommend more choices. Recommendations for us were a 1998 reserve red wine from Washington’s Columbia Valley winery Columbia Crest (MOP100+) to accompany the sirloin and a 2009 Vegabond Petite Sirah from California winery Bacio Divino (MOP120+) to go with the short rib. Both worked well, as expected. If you would rather chose your own, be prepared to flick through the 15,000+ labels on offer, some of which are on display in the wine cellars inside the dining room.
Desserts on offer as part of the lunch set are crème brulée, fruit salad or a piece of one of three signature cakes. On the day we visited, it was almond cake (the other two are coconut and raspberry, and black forest cake). The desserts are sizable (the crème brulée was absolutely delicious; the almond cake was nice as well), so try not to do what we did and overindulge with the bread, buffalo mozzarella and salami. Not ones for wasting food, we enthusiastically devoured every bite.
Open from 12pm to 2:30pm for lunch and from 6:30pm to 10:30pm for dinner
For reservations call (853) 8803 7777
+add 10% for service charge
*dress code applies
