COCONUTS CRITIC’S TABLE – Just opened in the spanking new building called The Wellington, Kettle Black is a very odd little diner. Its gimmicky concept is related to the name – almost every dish has some black-coloured element.
For such a novelty idea, you’d expected the place to be completely Goth-themed or chromatic in fashion. Instead, the décor reminds me of a simple French country bistro. There are white tiles on the wall and shelves with candles, glass bottles and, for literalism, even a few black kettles.
But other than the name, there isn’t any gastronomic rhyme or reason behind the bizarre concept.
The menu offers an ordinary range of snacks, like pasta, pizza and burgers – and not everything is either squid ink-flavoured or charcoal-based. In other words, there is no culinary reason for the ebony food. That is not the only random and inconsistent thing about the place though.
At night the lighting is very uneven. Some tables are so dim you can barely see what you’re eating. To top it off, they put down jet-black plates for us to eat on. Ridiculous.
There was little on the menu to really tempt us to the dark side. The French Onion Soup (HKD68) was a bit bland, with melted cheese (not Gruyère, I don’t think) on top of a black piece of spongy bread. The most interesting aspect of the soup was that the onions were diced so small they almost resembled a risotto consistency. This, I kind of liked.
KB’s Chicken and Sweet Potato Fries (see header photo, HKD88) consisted of chicken breast strips coated in ink-coloured cornmeal. It’s a perfectly fine beer snack, but I didn’t taste any squid or charcoal smokiness, so I have no idea why it needed to be black. The chicken came accompanied with a very arbitrary Thai sweet chilli dip. The sweet potato fries were, however, nice and crispy, just as they should be.
As a main, the Homemade Parpardelle with Red Wine Duck Ragout (HKD178) was quite small considering the price, but the flavours were good. The crispy pieces of prosciutto were especially tasty. Too bad the sauce was a bit too thin.
The most gastronomically curious offering was the Porcini Mushroom with Cordyceps Pizza (HKD128). It arrived on a crispy, black pizza base with mozzarella and the less expensive cordycep (fungus) shoots rather than the pricey medicinal fungi. In this instance, they were merely for texture. For fragrance, it was obvious that some truffle oil was also added. All the components work with the mushrooms but there wasn’t really any kind of contrast to give it depth.
As for the service, at one point we asked for some water after already ordering other drinks. The server replied that they hadn’t installed a filter yet so they are not sure if it’s clean enough for drinking. Um, isn’t this a brand new building with new pipes? Sounds like a poor excuse to pimp some bottled water to customers.
For a new Central restaurant, Kettle Black is honestly going to have a tough time attracting customers. Quirky concept aside, the food just isn’t up to par with the area’s higher standard of Western grub. And the drinks list is also too small to appeal as a happy hour bar.
Where they should have opened is in Mong Kok or Causeway Bay, where kids would perhaps get more of a kick from munching on black-on-black food.
Kettle Black: G/F, Shop 1, The Wellington, 184-198 Wellington Street, Central, (+852) 3628-2238. (Google Maps)
