Cocktail Shots to Start off with -
A lot of Italian shot cocktails were available here. Some were good but some seemed too toned-down.

.Grissini -
Hong Kong people love soft bready Grissini. It is a sad truth but I guess each to their own until they try real grissini in Italy. To me Grissini bread sticks are always crisp and browned, not the bready type provided elsewhere. The ones here were good and well balanced. ~ 8/10

.Beans in Cans -
Seemed like Cannellini beans. Always welcomed.

.Beef Skewers-
For Aperitivo Hours, how can one complain? These were punching above its weight.. ~ 7/10

. Meat Balls -
I expected these to be some sort of Arancini balls or Suppli. Out came some meat balls. Better than Ikea definitely. ~ 7/10

.Frittata -
They look more like Spanish Tortilla though. But they tasted good enough. 8/10

.Terrine with Vegetables -
These were unexpected and rather pleasant. Considering these are available for a DIme. ~ 7/10

.Chickpeas Salad -
Balances and part of the Happy Hour deal. Encore.

.Burrata with San Daniel Ham -
Burrata cheese was super fresh and creamy and also affordable at under $100. San Daniele ham was sweet and not too salty and fresh. Who cares about overly cured and aged ham? ~ 9/10

.Some Burger -
Can't remember much of this.

.Penette -
WIth house made Sausage and Sun-dried Tomato Sauce. This was my favourite snack of the night, ti was packed with pork and tomato flavours. ~ 9/10

.Gorgonzola and Black Truffle Risotto - $98
The blue cheese slightly over-powered the black winter truffle but it was ok in the end. Everything was al dente enough and cooked well. ~ 7/10

Chef Diego Rigotti has been voted as the Top Emerging Chef in Italy 2012, and Goccia managed to secure his service to cook for just a few days to showcase his Northern Italian style food from Trento region. Since this region is in the Mountain Alps, there is a natural emphasis on using more natural herbs and forest elements in the dishes. Diego has also worked in the world famous Marc Veyrat’s restaurant (Veyrat is Double 3 Michelin Starred), which he gets his inspiration from this grand master in France and also cooks up in the mountains. This Tasting Menu will only last until Saturday, which u have 2 more days left to reserve a spot! Thanks for the Invitation for Tasting..

.Left: Chef Diego Rigotti, Right: Goccia's Executive Chef Fabrizio Napolitano

.Bread Basket -
The bread here is quite decent actually and authentic Italian in taste, but for local preference, should arrive a little warmer ~ 7/10

.Lichen Crumbed Fried Egg served in a Grana Padano mash, with Shaved Black Truffles – $168
Half expecting the fried egg to come in the shape of a round Cromesqui shape, it certainly surprised as it came as a flat disk, but inside was a half-runny egg. The whole dish just screamed WOW, it was so cleanly executed and done well with all of the advertised flavours, the dried lichen and the mash with truffles impressed. ~ 9/10

.Mountain Style Mancini Spaghetti Carbonara, with baby chicory, smoked Arctic Char fish. With Dried Tomato & Speck Ham dust and Egg Foam – $188
On paper this sounded really interesting, but I think it needed more of the speck dust and egg foam. The Arctic Char fish is basically smoked salmon like. Thought this could be better balanced overall.. ~ 6/10

.Pine Scented Confit Cod, Celeriac Puree, Raspberry & Squid Ink Crispy Polenta, with Foam of Fish Bones & Porcini – $288
The fish is poached for 8 minutes at 60C and the texture was great, but for some reason the sous vide infused pine scent was faint and it felt like there was Coconut, and with the micro-shiso leaves presence felt quite Thai for me. I think the fish foam flavour could be stronger! ~ 6.9/10

.A Forest of Chocolate Dust, Meringue Mushroom, Green Tea sponge, Pistachio Cream and Rose Hip ice-cream – $128
Made to evoke memories of walking in the forest, the rose hip component was also quite unique. I liked this dessert and it reminds me of a dish at Mandarin Grill too. ~ 7/10

. Although some dishes on paper carried some Alps and Arctic specialty items which you can't normal find in HK Restaurants, I personally found some ingredients' flavours to be slightly too weak. It will be tremendously better if they could up the ante and just make it less subtle. But for me, I found this meal very educational - because whenever I eat in Europe I find the food to be so transitional across borders.... I actually ate very similar styled food in Switzerland and Denmark, which are just so local terroir based. The 1st course was the best course, but the other dishes just needed a bit more fine tuning.

And what is $7-800 if you can experience such specialty Italian food from Trentino Region in Hong Kong, somewhere that is so mystifying but might never get a chance to visit in your life?

Goccia is a bar/restaurant in the heart of soho. It brings Southern Italian cuisine to Hong Kong, the décor is stylish and comfortable, and tables are fairly spaced. Apparently, most of the ingredients are flown in from Italy and Europe.

Cuisine: Italian
Food rating: 4/10*
Service: 2/10
Ambiance: 7/10
Price: HK$130pax

* Food Rating: 6/10 is equivalent to 1 Michelin star, 8/10 to two Michelin stars, and 9/10 or above to three Michelin stars

Rocket salad with cherry tomato and parmesan shaved (7/10)
The rockets were dry and crisp. Tomato was sweet and fresh. The salad was nicely seasoned and topped with shaved parmesan. Fusilli chicken alfredo sauce (4/10)
The fusilli was cooked nicely – al dente. The chicken was fairly seasoned and tender. The alfredo sauce was creamy and rich, yet wasn’t too heavy for lunch. If you are looking for a nice elegant restaurant for a quick/business lunch, Goccia is the place for you. More importantly, it has great selection of Southern Italian tapas with sprinkling wine in the evening. However, the waiters are either no or stupid. I sat down while waiting my friend, and there were 3 different waiters serving us, and the waiter doesn’t understand English, we have to repeat 10 times before he gets the order and got it wrong. Bloody wonderful!

Give me a thumbs up if you like it!

Happned to see they were serving white truffle dishes. Two of us ordered 1 set lunch and 1 white truffle dish.
This is the first time we tried white truffle, actually we never saw a white truffle except on TV or photo. We asked to look at the menu of white truffle dishes but they don't have such menu. The waitor asked us to pick risotto, tagliatelle and so on and then the chef would tailor-make the dish to go with the white truffle. The price depends on the weight of the truffle we want, it was $120/g. We were told that it was $170/g the day before but he did not explain why the price was reduced.
I picked risotto to go with the white truffle.
The set lunch includes a salad, main course and coffee.
I am not a fan for ham so I have no comment for the mortadella salad.There was a long wait after the salad, about 20 minutes, probably the time to prepare the risotto. With the nice environment and a basket of bread to munch on, it was ok for the wait. Just beware of this if you are in a hurry. Maybe that's why the place was less than half full during lunch time. We were excited when the moment the waitor brought us the white truffle and the risotto. Even on its own without the white truffle, the risotto smelled very good! First he weighed the white truffle on a scale before he started shaving it onto the risotto. I had no idea how many grams should go with the risotto, I just stopped him when I thought it was enough. He weighed it again, 3 g were gone to the dish. The risotto itself was good but the taste of the white truffle was not very strong and we expressed this to the staff. He replied that the white truffle was cut open yesterday so some aroma had gone. Probably that was the reason why it was more expensive per gram yesterday than today.
We picked chicken for the main course. It was a bit over cooked and tough. Maybe it is the Italian style. When we traveled to Italy we often found that the pasta was excellent but the main course was not the way we liked it at the same restaurant. From our experience with Italian restaurants, we may just order pasta etc. but not the main course and then (of course) the dessert.
The tiramisu was great! It is $38 with the set and the portion is enough for 2 of us. The coffee was also perfect!When we settled the bill, the staff told us that the tiramisu was on the house .
The staff was nice and friendly and sincerely asked us to comment.

Thanks to a kind invitation, I were to enjoy our dinner across three restaurants: First courses in Goccia, second course in La Perouse, and dessert in Robata Zawazawa, all paired with different wines. Bread basket
just a quick note on the bread (or pane in Italian) that I sampled with. The Grissini was exceptionally good and I enjoyed the herbal aroma in the crunchy and wheaty treat; the bacon and cheese baguette had a nice saltiness of baked cheese; while the wheaty bun was really good with black olives in it. Too bad that i was too shy to ask for vinegar and olive oil to dip the bread in - I could easily finish one whole basket on my own, and it was even WORSE that i forgot to try the focaccia!!!!First course - Sardinian Smoked Swordfish Roll with fennel and mini ratatouille
The Swordfish was quite heavy in salt and had a strong smoky smell, but the light and crunchy fennel slices it rolled in balanced off the heaviness.The mini ratatouille (or stewed vegetable) was slightly spicy and sour to taste, making it a refreshing compliment to the fish roll and also the homemade cracker with sea salt. The cracker was extraordinarily crunchy and wheaty; i couldnt help but ate two whole pieces of the crunchy snack! It was one thing eating the fish with forks and knife, quite another putting everything together with the cracker. Delicious!Second course: Spaghetti with Sicilian Red Prawns cherry tomato in a spicy tomato sauce
Sicilian red prawn had long been reknowned for the exquisite richness and flavour, and were very expensive. Most of the ingredients used in this pasta were imported directly from Sicily, making sure that it's taste genuinely Italian.

I was not disappointed: the no-frill pasta was cooked to have the perfect al dante texture, quite wheaty to taste, and the spicy tomato sauce might looked plain on appearance but was SO RICH in seafood flavour. Besides the mild spiciness (I could tolerate something hotter), it was like putting the entire ocean into your mouth - you could almost feel the shrimp swimming around! And i wasn't even eating the shrimp already but the sauce. The shrimp was of course spongy and SO RICH, SO RICH that I almost wanted to lick my plate clean. Yummy!Third course: Fillet of Red Gurnard with Florentine Panzanella and fish soup reduction
Being a seafood fantic, I was more than happy to have three seafood dishes in a row. I enjoyed the tender and silky smooth fish in front of me, it carried a rich taste of the fish, and was not overly oily.The fish stock reduction was unbeatably delicious, but what you shouldnt miss was the Panzanella - simply made out of soaked stale and fresh bread in tomato sauce. The bits of fresh basil in the bread were aromatic and - what more can i say other than it was to my likings? Surprise - We were already behind the schedule (we were supposed to move by 9pm) but Chef Fabrizio Napolitano was so hospitable that he treated us to a scrumptious dessert platter, 'not wanting to stuff us with too much'!We had some of the MOST italian desserts like Tiramisu (of course), hazelnut icecream with crunchy biscuit base, strawberry cheesecake, and chocolate cigars(mint and vanilla).

I enjoyed the Tiramisu BEST, it was really authentic and I am already tired of the creatively decomposed/rearranged/reinterpreted 'tiramisu' elsewhere - hey, if I am ordering Tiramisu its crunchy ladyfingers, heavy coffee liquor and really creamy cheese that i want to see. This had been one of the BEST tiramisu I have had in Hong Kong - the ladyfingers were freshly made and had a nice comby texture; the chef had been generous with the liquor which i liked; and the cheese was thick (yay!) and SOOO rich and creamy.

Like many, I have been to the bar at Goccia and also in its previous incarnation -- many times, but have only dined there 2-3 times over the past few years.

The food seems to have improved, with some notable dishes appearing -- I particularly enjoyed the truffle risotto and the beef cheek ravioli, which is a dish I always order in Italian places. I preferred it to the versions I have tried recently (Isola and Tuscany by H). The profiteroles (shared) were a perfect end to the meal.

Crowd was an even mix of westerners and locals, half groups/special occasions and half couples.

Wine list is not extensive, but well suited to the cuisine, lots of good choices in the 1000-1500 range, I chose a nice bottle of Italian white that was suggested by the maitre d' - well chosen I must say.

Service was friendly, quick, and non-intrusive. All in all a good evening and I'll be back!

we were led upstairs. after the long staircase, we came to a very nice area with large tables and comfie chairs. the deco was very nice too!

as for food:

bread was yummy

apetitizer - i had squid salad, which was alright

main course - i had the fettucelle. it was also alright.

dessert - free ice-cream

the food was overall, alright. however, the portion was good, although it was very filling.

I'd been there a few times before, a year or two ago. The food was fine, ambiance was nice, bar is pretty happening, but I was repeatedly disappointed by the service and vowed never to go back after the previous chef, a portly and unpleasant man, dismissively refused my requests.

I was pleasantly surprised when I returned for a large gathering last month. It was totally changed, a new manager, new waiting staff, a new chef and apparently renovations too! The service was friendly and attentive. The new chef, a handsome budding Jamie Oliver type, seemed to give everyone special treatment and personally took our order.

Since we were a large group, we opted to share an assortment of appetizers and then choose our own main course. A great way to try everything in one sitting! The buffalo mozzarella with cherry tomatoes, tuna tartar with black olive paste, and clams with wine wine sauce were well done classics. The beef carpaccio and calzone were tasty. And the manager gave us suggestions for wine matching.

For main courses, the salt-baked whole sea bass was a delight. Their homemade beef cheek ravioli was heavy but so tasty, not to mention the black truffle and wild mushroom risotto. Oh and the 'piece de resistance' a veritable heart attack on a plate, was a penne made with gorgonzola, cream, black truffles and walnuts. Call the cardiologists!

Overall a hearty and enjoyable dining experience!