8½ Otto e Mezzo BOMBANA Macau — Restaurant in Cotai Landfill Zone

We recently returned to Otto Mezzo in Macau, eager to relive the unforgettable dining experience we had two years ago. Celebrating our anniversary, we were excited to share this occasion with our invited guest. Given our previous visit, we had high expectations, especially since we informed the restaurant in advance that two of us follow a vegetarian diet. We were hoping Chef Ricardo would create a magical vegetarian menu for us, just as he did before.

Unfortunately, our experience fell short of expectations. This time, we were offered only a basic tomato salad and a pasta dish served with an excessive amount of black truffles. The menu appeared to heavily favor red meat dishes, which was disappointing for our guest, who does not eat beef.

We ordered a couple of bottles of wine, each costing over $2,000, but no one offered to decant them. The restaurant was relatively slow that evening, and we felt we deserved better attention and care from a renowned Michelin-star establishment.

Regrettably, the wonderful service team we had encountered during our last visit was no longer present, including Chef Ricardo. This change seemed to reflect in the quality of the food. The two pasta dishes we were served were bland and lacked flavor, overwhelmed by the truffles rather than enhanced by them.

Our guest tried a non-red meat dish, the kinki fish, and found the sauce excessively salty. Overall, this experience did not meet our hopes for an amazing dining occasion, and we felt disappointed for our guest, especially since we had previously praised Otto Mezzo as a vegetarian-friendly Michelin-star restaurant.

Given this experience, we are unlikely to return and will reconsider our recommendations to others. Otto Mezzo used to be our favorite vegetarian-friendly Michelin-star restaurant in the world, but it seems that has changed.

July 2025

2 years ago⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review 👇👇👇

We need 2 to 4 weeks booking in advance if we wish to dine at 8 1/2 Otto Mezzo Bombana in Hong Kong, but not in Macau (by luck) during this Easter holiday.

Chef Riccardo specially made a 5 courses vegetarian menu for us which was amazingly delicious! From the gorgeous presentation of each dish to gustatory delights!

The garden salad seems like a simple plate of appetiser yet by using fresh ingredients and adding salt, lemon and olive oil, we could taste "Spring" on each bite, simply mesmerising. This is most probably the best tomato salad we've ever tasted so far. Chef also brilliantly turned a morel mushroom dish into a savory meaty work of art.

Thank you Chef Ricardo for taking our taste buds on a wonderful journey! And thank you to excellent customer service team! 👏👏👏Marino the GM who welcome each guest like his own house guest, Nancy Wang the restaurant manager who has so much energy! She seems to really love her profession and Gérard our man of the evening, he's very knowledgeable in guiding us through the journey though our foods were not on the menu. We hope we could come...

Such a memorable dining experience. I’ve wanted to go to the original one in HK, but this location didn’t disappoint. The food was impressive, of course. Loved the olive oil tasting, and bread (sourdough, focaccia, oregano and pepper roll) was really good—assuming they make it on site. Veal tar tar was perfectly flavored and balanced. Crab pasta and whit truffle pasta were good, though a bit too sophisticated for my understanding. Tenderloin was cooked perfectly and simply melted in my mouth—amazing quality, shows that they really pay attention to the ingredients they use to pair well with the dish. Yet, for me, at least, the food wasn’t what made this place 5 stars; rather, it was the service that was exceptional. All the waitstaff made you feel so comfortable, and the care they put into explaining every single dish elevated the dining experience. Walked away with a full stomach...

Sorry, no photos of this restaurant or their dishes as I think it is wrong to take the photos without the permission of the chef. It is a dinner hard to forget. The passion of the staff, and their dedication to perfect these dishes and to create an environment for the guests, that’s me and my wife, to enjoy the dinner, is out of my imagination. It is more than fine dining but arts and can be experienced by presenting yourself in that environment only and not by the photos.

Having said that this is my first Michelin experience with Italian food so I cannot compare it to the others. However, it is...