Carbone Hong Kong — Restaurant in Hong Kong Island

Carbone from New York has always captured the heart of the celebrities with delicious and flavourful italian cooking which earned them a Michelin Star back in 2013. Carbone is thus one of the first brand that black sheep group introduced to Hong Kong in 2014. Just like their America flagship branch, Carbone situated themselves at LKF, the heart of the city. With such renown fame, one could surely understand the excitement we hold for our first visit. —————————————————— ✨𝔹𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕕 𝔹𝕒𝕤𝕜𝕖𝕥 𝕨/ 𝕊𝕒𝕝𝕒𝕞𝕚 & ℂ𝕙𝕖𝕖𝕤𝕖 ✨ They go all out with their complimentary bread basket, serving with quality salami and cheese fresh from the cheese wheel, setting up a high bar for coming courses.

✨ℂ𝕒𝕖𝕤𝕒𝕣 𝔸𝕝𝕝𝕒 ℤℤ✨$308 Prepared by the Table-side with a generous amount of Parmesan and anchovies. The gigantic croutons didn’t amplify the crunchiness. The salad is flavourful with that sweet Roman lettuce giving an extra snap. Still I prefer the anchovies ground and mixed as the base of the seasonings.

✨𝕊𝕡𝕚𝕔𝕪 ℝ𝕚𝕘𝕒𝕥𝕠𝕟𝕚 𝕍𝕠𝕕𝕜𝕒✨$278 The signature of Carbone. This hearty pasta is known for it glossy appearance and deep flavour. The rigatoni is perfectly al dente and each of them is coated with the savoury sauce, living up to the origin. As a tribute to the classic italian red sauce, it manages to maintain the acidity of tomato with a mild kick of peppers. Vodka acts as a perfect cohensive to the caramelised tomato and creamy cheese.

✨𝕊𝕒𝕝𝕞𝕠𝕟 𝕆𝕣𝕖𝕘𝕒𝕟𝕒𝕥𝕒✨$508 We are not into red meat for that night so we go for the fish. Contrary to our imagination of classic oreganata in which the fillet should be covered in garlicky, zesty oregano breadcrumbs, it seated on the bed of cannellini beans and herb salad, which are bland and incoherent. More to it the fillet is overcooked and giving the dish a boring and monotonous texture. We are very disappointed with the protein.

✨ℂ𝕒𝕣𝕣𝕠𝕥 ℂ𝕒𝕜𝕖✨$228 Is never a legit celebration without a slice of cake. The swirl cake captured our eyes at the moment the dessert cart presented. A moist, dense cake with a hint of ginger and the exotic scent of cinnamon is soul-satisfying. The frosting is on the sweet side with a beautiful velvet texture. Still if I am here for a casual dinner, I found it extremely hard to convince myself order a $228 piece of cake when you can have the same authentic carrot cake with $90 at Butter, which is also a brand owned by Black Sheep. ——————————————————— Generally the food are overpriced with the Spicy Rigatoni Vodka as the sole highlight so with plenty of decent choices out there Carbone seems to lost their uniqueness in our eyes. The dining envoironment is pretty dim and crowded, hustlers who enjoy a sip would love the vibe but they are just not the spot for intimate moments or people who enjoy discreet. Having said that, their seasonal black series offer or plated menu is a great deal for diners who...

Once seated, the waiters will make you feel right at home by serving complimentary cheese (cut right in front of you), prosciutto and a huge basket of garlic bread, even before showing you the menu

Let’s start off with desserts (although the trolley will only come at the end of the meal) because you absolutely need to save enough space in your stomach for them!

Although all their desserts are amazing, the luscious lemon cheesecake is just on a whole other level, so it’s best to set it aside for last. With a perfectly balanced taste of creaminess and zestiness paired with a velvety smooth texture, it’s definitely worth every penny of the hefty price tag.

The moist carrot cake came in a really interesting curved shape with ginger ice cream on the side. The highlight would definitely be the rich cream cheese frosting on top —making it better than all the other carrot cakes I've had before!

The spicy rigatoni vodka is their most famous dish, but it was too spicy for me, so I can’t say if it lives up to its reputation.

However, I can definitely vouch for their other must-try signature dish - the gigantic Mario’s meatballs paired with rustic tomato sauce, as the juicy and tender meatballs made of ground beef and veal just melted in our mouths. It was a good idea that we listened to the waiter’s suggestion to add an extra meatball, so that the 4 of us could each have an entire one to ourselves (side note: you can try recreating the meatballs at home by checking out the recipe on Major Food Group website)

Highly recommend ordering the caprese salad for starters. The simple dish is made of high-quality ingredients (heirloom tomato, burrata cheese and salsa verde) that speak for themselves, and you can witness the waitress pouring the olive oil with your own eyes.

For mains, we got the NY bone-in strip and the potatoes sergio as a side dish. While we enjoyed the charred steak, the crispy potato wedges really stole the show - it was perfectly flavored with herbs and rosemary sprigs that were just delightful to the palate!

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Carbone has been on my to-dine list for quite some time, but since there are always so many new dining places to try, I never made it to Carbone until Black Sheep Restaurant Week with amazing dinner deal!

Carbone has a really lovely interior design with colourful tiles, wood panelling, and red armchairs. Not to miss their beautiful plates!

The big feast started with a basket of house bread, cheese and ham. My cousin and I love the bread dearly! The cheese and ham were very delicious too, either on their own or with the bread.

The complementary meatballs were huge! The slightly fat minced beef gave so much texture and flavor to the meatballs, lovely! And the tomato sauce made a great dressing.

This macaroni - Spicy Rigatoni Vodka with tomato, onion and Calabrian chili was the best dish among all. The rigatoni pasta was very al dente, and the best part of it was that sauce was nicely distributed on the surface of the pasta, instead of having a huge lump inside. Awesome!

The Primi of Ribeye Diana with pancetta in Cacciatore was a bit ordinary. The steak was meaty and tender itself, but the sauce was a bit salty.

The contorni of Broccoli AOP with garlic, olive oil and peperoncino was like “a Chinese restaurant dish”, a comment made by my cousin. And I could totally relate. I guess it’s not quite common to see broccoli in a western menu. Again, the seasonings were a bit too much and I was quite thirsty after having the broccoli.

Luckily, this dolce of New York Lemon Cheesecake ended the meal on a more positive side. We were a bit disappointed after the steak and broccoli. Dense and moist citric cheesecake, with a light cheese flavor and enjoyable cake base saved the meal.

This complementary little cake piece was gorgeous, with two thin layers of chocolate wrapping the flavored cake layers.

Honestly, the complementary dishes are more satisfying. I wonder if I would visit Carbone again in near future (even with any...