Restaurants

Light and airy, Yauatcha’s chic ground-floor tea house and pâtisserie offers a fusion spin on tea and cakes. It’s modern in looks, but the ever-shrinking dedicated café space means there are now just three tables; bag one of these or you’ll be offered a seat in the restaurant area and find yourself being unceremoniously shifted around at mealtimes. In the café, regimentally aligned sweet treats provide a colourful spectacle of decorative moulded creams and mousses, many enclosed in wisps of sponge or chocolate. What distinguishes them from regular offerings is the East-meets-West flavour combos. We’re talking tea infusions, floral flavours, spiced macaroons and wasabi chocolates. Delicately fragrant melon tiramisu wrapped in white chocolate delivered a sweet yet pleasingly astringent note, offset by its crisp chocolate case. Equally distinctive were a pat of blackberry confit in a blue tea cream, and chocolate ganache spiked with chillies. Flavours are more mellow than in previous years – a big plus. But staff need to become a lot more efficient and friendly; we’ve sat here for as long as an hour in the past without being served. Yauatcha was sold by Alan Yau to a Middle East based company in January 2008, but for the time being, it looks like business as usual.

Time Out Eating & Drinking Guide 2008