Spasso Italian Bar & Restaurant    

hm..nice place with nice atmosphere. Especially Valentine's Day where there was a photographer who captures your photos and send you by email which I rejected. Just didn't want photos to be leaked / posted out.

Straight to the point.

Ordered Tuna Loin, Wagyu Beef and a Pizza.

1) Tuna tasted fresh and juicy. Its outer layer is slightly seared which gives that bit of texture that it's cooked. Lemon juice were squeezed to go with the loin which makes it tastier and fresher.. Not bad not bad

2) Wagyu Beef - was a slow cooked beef and it actually didn't taste like beef at all. The beef actaully tasted very strange BUT maybe it wasn't my cup of tea. Not much comment on this dish.

3) Vegetarian Pizza: Pizza was very filling which my girlfriend and I coundn't finish them all. It was huge and texture was brilliant The cheese has a strong taste of milk in it.

Not much comment regarding this restaurant. Overall, OK

Came here 3 times in succession, due to coincidence. 1st time was when a friend wanted a particular Seafood dish, and this was the only restaurant on Kowloon side I am aware of serving a whole Sea Bass. 2nd time was by invitation to try out the new chef's signature dishes. The 3rd time was because another friend wanted accompaniment to her lunch and I ended up trying the same dishes anyway - at least that way I can ensure of consistency.

To be honest, I actually enjoy Divino Patio more despite them belonging in the same group. I find that at Spasso, some dishes were really great but others weren't really to my preference. Here are some of the dishes I recommend or others which showed some potential !

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A friend of mine invited my family for dinner at this place. It turned out that there was something more than dinner, but that is another story...

Anyway, I was busily engaging in something else, and took no part in chosing my dish, or even had a look on the menu. The She Who Must be Obeyed made all the decisions for me and ordered roast suckling pig for me.

I must confess that I don't know roast suckling pig is also part of the Italian cuisine. From the size of the pig, it must be indeed a very little suckling pig (and I feel really sorry for the little piggie....). It is very different from the Chinese style for sure. There is no seasoning at the inside of the pig. Beside, the meat is much joicy than the Chinese style. The skin is thin and crispy, and similar to the "glass skin" of the Chinese style. It tasted a lot of lighter than the Chinese style.

A waitress waited our table. She knew the menu well, and was able to switch to Putonghua channel immediately when she found out that one of us is a mainland putonghua speaking person. She showed a little impatient when the mainland friends asked for something "unusual" for a western restaurant but yet, she had nevertheless tried to accommodate the mainland friends. As other top-end western restaurant, she also came and asked for our comments after we finished our dinner. She told us that the restaurant may stop serving suckling pig as the restaurant may review its menu.

As I was not paying, I don't know how much, but I don't think it will be cheap...

I had dinner here with my gal friend yesterday. We had great time there and our dinner was satisfactory.

We ordered two set menus; it was surprising cheap given the environment and service here, with only HK$488/person for 4-course set dinner.

Starter: tuna carpaccio Pasta: whole wheat pasta with sausage ragout, small portion on a huge plate but the taste was really good. Main course: lamb stew and pan-roasted red snapper (It was too dark and couldn't take very nice photo of the lamb stew). I love the lamb stew, the meat was tender and the sauce was just right, but the portion was rather small.Dessert: Italian cake. I bet this must be a low-sugar dessert, tasted nice but can’t really ease the sweet-toothed me. The foods in generally are on the healthy side, you can tell all the dishes are prepared with minimal oil and condiments. The portion however, is rather small for a big eater, but it’s still good for money.

To be honest, I jz have dinner with my fds there tonite, their staff 's attutude are very bad, no matter what the situation is ordering food, requesting drink or even checking bill, fr the senior manager ( I guess ) to the delivery dishes staff, I cant feel anyone is providing a gentle manner to us, Im not requesting to have "皇室人員要像皇帝那樣服待", however, their service efficiency, the attitude to their customer, their fascial expression cant be to have a pass standard.
Anyway, I have come to this restaurant three times, chances are granted, but no one time can perform well. Of course maybe we are really 多你一個唔多小你一個唔小, but sorry that we wont go anymore, and we wont suggest this restaurant to our fds anymore.
PS: duno y there r many comments to their services, but still no change, poor guys!

First of all, i am not angry with this place, i just felt disapointed. A star resturant( i am not sure they still are) had gave us a horrible afternoon. Ok, so what happen was a staff had scared us when we tried to order something to drink. What kind of beer do u hve? I asked. The reply was "WHAT!???" speaking in chinese with a horrible manna and a loud voice..... I mean, hey what's the matter? We just want to have a good afternoon, enjoy a glass or maybe 2 beers under the sunshine in TST. So, maybe she don't understand what i am saying, i asked the same question 1 more time with smile... She left a beer name (sry, i hardly hear wht she said but should be 1 of their beer's name), then walk away...... ohhh my god (how can this happen in such a nice place, gd view, 10% service charge, star resturant) Whoever this staff r, thank you, so i can del Spasso in my list and put another one in, because u had just killed my whole Sat afternoon. I was scared, my friends were scared because of the loud voice and the manna she acted. Ok, this is the only part 1. Part 2, finally we had ordered some wine by glass, we had 2 rounds, seated 1.5 hrs, suddenly a staff came to us with a bill...... ohhhh i thought i can order maybe 1 or 2 more glasses?? I didn't ask for the bill..... Ok, i gave up, u won, i quit. No next time. People, this is not really a comment but just a little story of what i just had in this place. Thank you.

It was my first week in town, first time in this restaurant, and first time doing what most of the Hong Kongers would do – eat, snap & blog!

Being named the best view resto in Harbor City, Spasso does somehow live up to its reputation in the heart of many HK people with its ‘spacious’ outdoor patio, I would not be surprised in a place like HK where land is supremely scarce, anything bigger than usual would be considered spacious. Unfortunately, that day the patio was filled up to its capacity, so we were lead to the indoor seats with an outdoor view, a pretty comfy place which overlooking the open air patio with partial harbor-view through the window frame.

We sat down and very soon we were served with a bread basket with 3 different types of dips, the breads weren’t really fresh-from-oven but the dips made up the taste. I tried the grissini with the aged vinegar, i could tell the vinegar was definitely good stuff!The bread basket

We ordered 2 semi-buffet lunches - goose liver and black truffle ravioli and a chicken & parma ham as mains, a dessert from the ala carte and a special mix from the bar.

We started with a mixed-green platter! With more than 10 types of fresh, grilled and boiled vege and mushrooms, plus plenty of salad dressings and aromatic mists on the bar, it really took us awhile to figure how to dress up our salad platter. Then the all-meat platters with all other Italian antipasti.
Cold-cut and cheeses are those things you would expect to see in any other Italian restaurant, so no big surprise for me, but what seemed to be interesting was the food replenishing here was fast and at 2:30pm late lunch, you still wouldn’t be seeing any empty or half-empty tray on the counter. Seriously, I hate entering a restaurant just to find out the foods on the buffet counter are half gone while the guest is still being asked to pay the same amount of money.

The mains were good especially the homemade pasta, the taste was just right, the goose liver and truffle are both strong ingredients but none was overpowering. I had a small bite on the chicken & parma ham, it was ok. The best has yet to come…We both love desserts, the desserts on the bar and the mini ice-cream didn’t help to satisfy our craving – so we went on to order another dessert from the ala carte (to avoid any mistake, we asked for recommendation from the server) 15mins later came the mind-blowing dessert and drink! The dessert tasted just as good as it looked! And the special drink amazed me just as much as the dessert did with its hint of mint that blended in so well with pineapple juice that would instantly refresh a tired soul! Triple thumbs up for these! Now it’s the time to pay for all the fun and enjoyment we had for nearly 2 hours! Tada…HK$665!

If you are trying to test your EQ and level of torlence, this is the place to be! Yet if you are looking for a decent service and fine dining experience, don't spoil your day/night by going there!

I went for tea and arrived earlier than my friend. So naturally I approach the staff and said I was not sure if any reservation had been made. Normally you would expect the staff to check the booking and arrange me to be seated. But she said, 'Perhaps you go inside and take a look to see your friend is there'. Then I went inside and found that my friend wasn't there. But no one arranged me to be seated. Finally when I asked for a table, a waiter responded in a poker face, 'We only got pizza, the buffet closes in 30 minutes'.

My friend was late for 30 minutes. During that time, no waiter attended me or offered me water or perhaps asked me if I would like a drink. Finally when she arrived, we left without ordering any food.

We had a reservation at Spasso for Sunday Brunch.
It's our first time with our local friends. Usually we are here with our gweilo friends.
The service couldn't have been far more disgusting.

(1) The Manager
Twice, he yelled at his staff.
Once, when there were hardly anyone at the restaurant and he yelled at his staff for not lining up the food right.
Second time, he yelled at his staff to tell whoever walks in the restaurant and orders a la carte to head to McDonald's instead. He doesn't care for those customers returning.

Very unprofessional. I wonder why he is still there.

(2) Wait Staff
Obviously I knew the difference between still, sparkling and tap. Instead of asking me, he approached my local colleague who doesn't understand the terms in English and went off to open 5 bottles of still water for the entire table, despite asking only 2 folks who don't understand the lingo for water in English.

By 2 p.m. eyes were down, not paying attention to guests. Had to walk up to them to get their attention.

(3) Food
Undercooked grilled vegetables, really awful cheap beef used (tried to hide the flavour in lots of gravy), ... Spasso has gone cheap to make up for rent increases and increasing food prices. No wonder people are turning to their a la carte menu. The buffet is cheap, cheap, cheap!

There is no way, I'd be returning to Spasso. There are way too many places serving Sunday Brunch with waaaaay better service! Spasso has gone downhill and apart from being to sit in the sun (while the weather is good), Spasso has nothing much to offer its customers. Time to move on and out of Harbour City!

(Sadly, no camera on my person at the time, so no photos.)

Wanted to arrange an intimate dinner for two with a view of the Harbour, so made a booking at Spasso after reading the reviews on Openrice. This, it turned out, was a mistake.

1) How not to set up an online booking system

Spasso's website purports to have a page on which online reservations can be made. However, filling it in resulted merely in a pro forma email saying that my reservation has been submitted and that my reservation would be confirmed "shortly" by email or by phone.

24 hours later, I received neither an email nor a phone call. A follow-up phone call finally resulted in a reservation, without any explanation of why I didn't receive any confirmation of my online reservation.

2) How front-of-house staff should not behave

We arrived about 8 minutes late due to work commitments and were promptly shown to our table. Our waiter chose to make an excellent first impression by scowling at a request for tap water (rather than bottled water). This set the tone for his attitude for the remainder of the evening. On being asked for wine recommendations for wine by the glass, he showed no hesitation in steering us - fairly insistently - towards the most expensive wines on the menu.

To complete the Bad Service Triple Crown, this waiter had the cheek to announce how much the meal cost when presenting me with the bill. As my dining companion remarked, a waiter should never tell the gentleman how much the bill cost in the presence of the lady.

3) Oh yes, the food...

We ordered three dishes to share:
a) Timbale of eggplant and buffalo mozzarella;
b) Blue crab ravioli; and
c) Mallard duck breast in blood orange and caramel-duck sauce.

The eggplant timbale was probably the best-tasting of the three, with the eggplant setting off the mozzarella beautifully. There was none of the filling sensation that one typically gets from dishes which prominently feature cheese (mozzarella in particular).

The blue crab ravioli was also a strong contender. The ravioli came accompanied by a "green pea fondue" and roe (making for a slightly messy dining experience, in addition to the slipperiness of the ravioli itself). This being an Italian restaurant in the more traditional mold, pasta is not considered a main course - we received only 6 pieces between us.

The mallard duck breast, on the other hand, was not the kitchen's finest hour. Most of the pieces of duck breast had a visible line of white sinew running through them; Daffy might have been healthy, but he wasn't exactly easy to cut through. The sauce, while decent, did not taste very much of blood orange. The carrot slices accompanying this dish were quite good; the mashed potatoes nothing to write home about (as one might expect from mash).

4) The verdict

If you can get a table with a view of the harbour, some of the food here is actually quite good - assuming you can get past the contempt that some of the waiting staff appear to have for the rubes at the dining table. On the other hand, Spasso isn't the only restaurant in TST with a view of the Harbour, and there are far more compelling choices even within Harbour City.

As we both missed our lunch we decided to grab something to eat... but my mate want to find a place to smoke so we ended up here with the open area and sea view~

it was 3:30pm and they showed us the tea set... after the W hotel experience i wouldn't dare to other any more tea set when i am hungry... haha

so we ordered a 4 cheese Pizza (additional rocket leaves) and a Burger...

both were ok as i love thin crust... but the buger wasn't medium as i asked for... didn't order anything to drink and the bill was $300...

I was here for drink with my friend two weeks before. The drinks were excellence, and there are a lot of special drinks and wines to choose. The high tea set are great. Then, this time we decided to have dinner here. However, the server gave me a hard time.

Firstly, after we sit down, no one give us any menu until we ask for it; and the response of those servers always is “please wait!” I wait for a menu more than 5 minutes. It is unacceptable.

Secondly, we want to ask some questions of the dishes, but the server cannot answer us any questions and he call a foreigner with a tie to help us; I think he is a senior may be a captain, I don’t know. The main point is his attitude was SO RUDE! I don’t know how to describe that but the tone of his speaking really let us feel we were slighted by this server. When we want some service, such as refill the water, clean up the table; we just saw the servers gossiping with his colleague. Why he have time to gossiping, but no time to serve us???

Thirdly, the servers let me feel like eating in a fish market. They talk so loudly; and the Italian manager dress down one server publicly. Those below follow the example of those above.

For the food, we are very satisfied of that, specially the pama ham and the pizza. It is to be regreted that a restaurant that with good food, good drinks, but bad services. After this time we won’t come here for dinner or lunch, but for drinks because at least the bartenders provide us a good service.

There are exciting meals like my one thirtyone dinner, there are less exciting or rather boring meals and there are out right disappointing meals. My visit to Spasso Italian would fall under the last category! The meal took place back in early November during one of the coldest night but it was for a birthday celebration hence we opted to sit outside to enjoy the view.

Alright, the view was nice considering that there are very few alfresco dinning options in Hong Kong and this is one of those places whereby you can get that experience. (in my case, it wasn't a pleasant experience for various reasons to follow)

Let me start with the first disappointment or rather shocking experience. 30 secs after we placed our orders, a female staff with a plate of salad arrived. 3o secs??? No way!

Jason: "Excuse Me, I think we just placed our orders 30 secs ago, are you sure this is ours?"

Staff: "Ohhh, I am just responsible for delivering the dishes ... I don't know the rest."

HUH!? Thanks for being so frank and direct or straight out rude!? Turns out that female staff was a temporary staff but that cannot be an excuse for such a reply!

(1) Beef Carpaccio served with wild arugula and shaved Parmesan Cheese
Beef Carpaccio without much beef taste and the Parmesan was not strong enough as well.

(2) Compositions of baby spinach leaves, walnuts, green apples and Gorgonzola cheese flakes
No surprises here, rather refreshing though with the green apples. The Gorgonzola cheese flakes were not strong enough.

(3) Imported black mussels with white wine and garlic sauce
Overly salty with some broken shells and shrinked mussels! A sign of overcooking it. I would normally dip bread into the sauce but not this pot of salt water!

(4) Homemade saffron scented ravioli filled with blue crab meat laid on light green pea fondue

.............

For more details and picures, check out my blog at > http://jason-bonvivant.blogspot.com/2009/12/spasso-italian.html

been here twice, 1st time was brunch, i didn't eat much but it wasn't spectacular. given the location and the view, decided to take some customers here for dinner.

surprisingly, given the quality of the food, the place was packed! the tables were too small for 3persons, and tables were very close to each other.

the service was decent. the pizza, which is supposed to be one of the signature dishes were horrible. we ordered 2 pizzas. the dough was chewy, i had to tear it off like i was ripping the meat from a drumstick! the taste was only so-so. the pizza wasn't too expensive like $130-50 but when we wanted to add olives in one of the pizzas, they wanted to charge us ridiculous amount of money! we also tried to add another ingredient like anchovies and i think the extra charge was like $100. crazy!

if u want pizza, ur better off going to pizza express. at least their thin crust is crispy!

Went to Spasso to celebrate my friend’s birthday last night. There were 10 of us all together, quite a large group with mixed genders, and knowing we would be making constant noise throughout the dinner, we booked the terrace seats earlier. Unfortunately, it was heavy downpour last night, and we either had to reshuffle our plan or change location, insisted by some gals, we headed down to Spasso despite the rain.
We were lead to a private room at the end of the resto, comfortable for a group of 10 people like us, thank god, we really didn’t want to wind up nuisance to other diners in the hall with our chitchatting. That’s one good thing about Spasso. Next was the friendlier than ever service from the staff’s and their ever-pleasing big smile. I’m one peculiar diner who judges a restaurant based on its service more than the foods. I mean, it would be excellent to have both, but, like many people would think, it won’t be easy to get it in HK. And am glad, spasso has it all.
Enough talk, here’s our feasts - the fresh-out-of oven breads and balsamic dips, my No.1 favorite! 4 different types of pizzas & 4 focaccia romana (everyone loves spasso pizza, it is like they are the best in town!)….made-to-order, crispy and finger licking good! I love the simplicity of their pizza, the crust is so crispy and the fillings are so delicious. We ordered pumpkin soup, spasso signature salads & cappuccino créme brûlée as desserts each to go with pizzas...and self-brought birthday.

I have to say we had a really hearty birthday party with lots of funs and good foods, we cleaned up all the plates and left only our finger prints, we will come back again for more parties!