T’ang Court - Hong Kong
The upstairs dining room
Rating: 16/20
Where: Hong Kong, Hong Kong
When: Dinner for 2 on 9 May 2025
Cost per Person: Tasting menu 3280 HKD, Wine pairing 780-980 HKD
Accolades: 3 Michelin Stars
Why: Elevated takes on Cantonese and Hong Kongese dishes with a generous wine pairing
“T'ang Court” is the name that the Langham hotel group uses for its flagship Cantonese restaurants, with currently seven such restaurants across Asia and Australia. So in a sense, it's a restaurant chain that's part of a hotel chain. Impressively, two of these locations (in Hong Kong and Shanghai) even held three Michelin stars at some point. The Hong Kong location still does, now for ten years running. We had been here once before in 2018, on a somewhat crazy day where we followed a three-star lunch at T'ang Court with a three-star dinner at Sushi Shikon. (Not necessarily recommended.) Unfortunately, I took no notes back then, so we were happy to take the opportunity to return to Kowloon, this time for dinner.
The restaurant is one flight up from the Langham hotel's lobby and has dining rooms on two floors. The decor on the entry level was in beige or gold, whereas the floor above it had a circus-tent-like draped red ceiling. On this visit, we sat in the latter dining room. The view outside was not much to speak of, since we were “only” on the third floor. Therefore, it was no big deal that the sheer drapes were closed throughout our meal. The restaurant also has several private dining rooms, but those generally require a larger party than just the two of us.
T'ang Court has a very extensive menu with well over a hundred different dishes. If that seems overwhelming, then there is also a tasting menu that takes most of the work out of the decision process. Based on a cursory glance at other tables in the dining room, almost everyone was ordering a la carte, though. (Also proven by the fact that our excellent sommelier had to freshly open most of the bottles in the wine pairing.) Adapting the menu for dietary restrictions was no problem, within reason it was even possible to pick a favorite replacement dish. Oddly though, the garnishing ham on one of the courses was still served to my pescatarian dining companion (aka my wife).
There were two wine pairings to choose from, for 780 and 980 HKD, respectively. The sommelier didn't even check which one I wanted - he assumed that most people would go for the 980 HKD one, since it was only marginally more expensive. The wines were quite good and the pours very generous - essentially full glasses rather than tasting amounts. For perspective: the bottles would have cost around $25-$40 each in retail. Overall, this pairing was not as good as the one we had at Amber the night before, but then again, it only cost a fraction.
Before the wine pairing started, we were served an amuse bouche. A golden abalone was topped with fried garlic and chilies. Served warm, the abalone had some bite left and came with a nice garlic flavor from its crunchy toppings. There was only a hint of spice, though 17.
Speaking of spice, there were three different condiments on the table, ranging from lightly to noticeably spicy, the latter an XO sauce made with shrimp.
The first course of the tasting menu was served on a crab shell. That shell was topped with crab meat and onions in a cream sauce, and the whole dish then breaded and deep-fried. On the side was a Worcestershire sauce for optional seasoning. In a sense, this was a Hong Kongese take on a Western dish, bearing more similarity to a crab chowder than a traditional Cantonese crab dish. The cream was pretty light, though - lighter than it would have been in Western cuisine. The onions were only briefly blanched, the breading was crunchy and there was a lot of crab meat. Not bad, but a pretty rustic dish, and not exactly what one would expect in a Chinese restaurant 16.
This was followed by a soup containing more crab meat, crab roe, a piece of grouper, a bird's nest and some thin slices of ham on top. A lightly flavored dish that (at least for me) became infinitely better with the addition of some XO sauce. The fish was pretty firm in texture, the roe added some bitterness and the ham a bit of saltiness 17.
Stir-fried lobster was served with three kinds of onions: spring onions, red onions and crunchy shallots. The lobster was cooked well and quite tender, but it was light in flavor. With only a light dusting of flour on the lobster, this dish mostly relied on the generous amount of onions for added taste. Those onions were fine, but a bit oily 15. For contrast, my wife really liked this dish. She thought that it was a significantly elevated version of a Chinese banquet staple.
A braised abalone was served with a huge sea cucumber and blanched romaine lettuce leaves. The formerly dried abalone had taken up much of the sauce's umami-rich flavor. The sea cucumber was not too gelatinous but still maintained its distinctive texture - thanks to its chewiness it required some work to eat. The crunchy lettuce leaves were mostly there for texture, and maybe to add a touch of color to an otherwise fairly mono-chromatic dish. Visually, this was a very clean presentation - there was nothing redundant at all on the plate 16.
The main savory dish was stir-fried Japanese wagyu beef that came with several kinds of mushrooms, spring onions, fried garlic and two baby bok choy. The beef had a crunchy exterior, probably due to frying it over high heat. It was also pretty fatty - admittedly, I would have preferred a leaner cut of beef. The sauce was pretty light, the garlic crunchy, and the bok choy plain tasting. An elevated version of a traditional dish for sure, both in terms of ingredients and presentation 16. As I mentioned, there was no set pescatarian replacement, so my wife was able to choose a dish of pan-fried scallops with mushrooms and Chinese chives. The scallops were quite good, with a light sauce that permeated the dish 16.
In Chinese banquets, the savory courses are traditionally concluded with a rice dish. Here, we received an interesting twist on that subject. We were given a lobster soup that contained some shrimp dumplings and tomatoes. Next to it sat a bowl of hot, fried rice grains. Those could be added to the soup to taste, leading to a noticeable crackling sound. The rice remained quite crunchy in the soup, and it was a bit fatty. The soup was very lightly seasoned, feeling almost undersalted. The best part of the dish were the flavorful and delicious shrimp dumplings 15.
Three mini-desserts concluded our meal. The most substantial of these was a bowl that contained a large chunk of tofu and some whipped cream with some finely crumbled biscuits on top. The cream was fairly sweet, the dry biscuits on top slightly less so, and the tofu was not sweet at all. Still, a nicely creamy concoction that was much improved by the texture of the biscuit powder on top 15. Next to it was a honeydew jelly, light in flavor and with a texture that made it hard to eat with only a spoon 14. Finally, a dantat, an egg tart. The tartlet's shell was quite good, but its filling was way too eggy and not sweet enough for my taste 13.
Overall: A dinner full of elevated takes on traditional Cantonese dishes, and even a Hong Kong-style “Western” dish. Some familiarity with local cuisine would probably increase the appreciation of this meal. But purely from a taste perspective, the results were good, but not extraordinary - nothing really screamed “three stars” here. Based on this tasting menu, it was possibly the weakest among the three-starred Chinese restaurants in Hong Kong and Macau. But since we didn't even try 10% of the dishes on the menu, there might be plenty of other good choices 16.
