Gaddi's is a French haute cuisine

Haute cuisine

Haute cuisine or grande cuisine was characterised by French cuisine in elaborate preparations and presentations served in small and numerous courses that were produced by large and hierarchical staffs at the grand restaurants and hotels of Europe.The 17th century chef and writer La Varenne...

 restaurant situated in The Peninsula Hong Kong

The Peninsula Hong Kong

The Peninsula Hong Kong is one of the most internationally recognizable hotels in Hong Kong. Opened in 1928, it is Hong Kong's most historical hotel. It is located at the junction of Nathan Road and Salisbury Road in Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong...

 hotel. It was opened in 1953 and named after a former general manager of The Peninsula, Leo Gaddi. The current executive chef is Britain

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

's David Goodridge

David Goodridge

David Goodridge, is the Chef de Cuisine of the venerable Gaddi's restaurant at The Peninsula Hong Kong hotel.Goodridge joined Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons, a two-Michelin-starred restaurant in Oxfordshire, England, owned by one of the world's finest chefs Raymond Blanc, as a commis pâtissier at the...

. The former executive chef was Philip Sedgwick, the first British head chef of Gaddi's.

Decor

The decor is meant to evoke old Hong Kong

Colonial Hong Kong

In the 19th century the British, Dutch, French, Indians and Americans saw Imperial China as the world's largest untapped market. In 1840 the British Empire launched their first and one of the most aggressive expeditionary forces to claim the territory that would later be known as Hong Kong.In a few...

. and the hotel's original 1928 neoclassical architecture

Neoclassical architecture

Neoclassical architecture was an architectural style produced by the neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century, manifested both in its details as a reaction against the Rococo style of naturalistic ornament, and in its architectural formulas as an outgrowth of some classicizing...

. It has a European dining room, with two six-foot crystal-and-silver chandelier

Chandelier

A chandelier is a branched decorative ceiling-mounted light fixture with two or more arms bearing lights. Chandeliers are often ornate, containing dozens of lamps and complex arrays of glass or crystal prisms to illuminate a room with refracted light...

s from Paris, Tai Ping carpets, and a Chinese coromandel screen

Coromandel Screen

A Coromandel Screen is a wooden folding screen coated in dark lacquer that is carved before being painted with gold or varied colors. Some may be decorated with precious stones....

 dating from 1670.

Gaddi's uses expensive tableware, which includes polished antique silverware and Bernardaud porcelain. It also created the first Chef's Table

Chef's table

A chef's table is a table located in the kitchen of a restaurant, reserved for VIPs and special guests. Patrons are served a themed tasting menu prepared and served by the head chef. Restaurants can require a minimum party and charge a higher flat fee. Because of the demand on the kitchen's...

in Hong Kong where the Chef Table diners sit at a special table beside the Gaddi's kitchen viewing the dishes being prepared.

Food

Gaddi's was considered the best European restaurant in Hong Kong for a long time, but that reputation has since been challenged by a number of new restaurants that opened in recent years. The food is classically French

French cuisine

French cuisine is a style of food preparation originating from France that has developed from centuries of social change. In the Middle Ages, Guillaume Tirel , a court chef, authored Le Viandier, one of the earliest recipe collections of Medieval France...

 but with inventive European

European cuisine

European cuisine, or alternatively Western cuisine, is a generalised term collectively referring to the cuisines of Europe and other Western countries...

 influences.Online Frommer's review

The food is classic French haute cuisine

Haute cuisine

Haute cuisine or grande cuisine was characterised by French cuisine in elaborate preparations and presentations served in small and numerous courses that were produced by large and hierarchical staffs at the grand restaurants and hotels of Europe.The 17th century chef and writer La Varenne...

 and utilizes the highest-quality products imported from various countries. Examples of past dishes include:

• Raw-marinated foie gras
  Foie gras
  Foie gras ; French for "fat liver") is a food product made of the liver of a duck or goose that has been specially fattened. This fattening is typically achieved through gavage corn, according to French law, though outside of France it is occasionally produced using natural feeding...
  
   with toasted brioche
  Brioche
  Brioche is a highly enriched French pastry, whose high egg and butter content give it a rich and tender crumb. It is "light and slightly puffy, more or less fine, according to the proportion of butter and eggs" It has a dark, golden, and flaky crust, frequently accentuated by an egg wash applied...
  
  
• Twice-cooked pork belly
  Pork belly
  Pork belly is a boneless cut of fatty meat derived from the belly of a pig. Pork belly is popular in Asian cuisine, and forms a part of many traditional European dishes such as the Alsatian Choucroute garnie, the Swiss Berner Platte, and the German Schlachtplatte...
  
   with mustard risotto
• Bitter herb salad
  Salad
  Salad is any of a wide variety of dishes, including vegetable salads; salads of pasta, legumes, eggs, or grains; mixed salads incorporating meat, poultry, or seafood; and fruit salads. They may include a mixture of cold and hot, often including raw vegetables or fruits.Green salads include leaf...
  
   and balsamico sauce
• Specially selected American Black Angus Sirloin baked in a rosemary and salt crust with pea puree
• Roquefort fritters and pan-fried rye bread
  Rye bread
  Rye bread is a type of bread made with various percentages of flour from rye grain. It can be light or dark in color, depending on the type of flour used and the addition of coloring agents, and is typically denser than bread made from wheat flour...
  
   with melted Camembert
  Camembert (cheese)
  Camembert is a soft, creamy, surface-ripened cow's milk cheese. It was first made in the late 18th century in Normandy in northern France.-Production:...
  
   and oscietra caviar
  Caviar
  Caviar, sometimes called black caviar, is a luxury delicacy, consisting of processed, salted, non-fertilized sturgeon roe. The roe can be "fresh" or pasteurized, the latter having much less culinary and economic value....
  
  

There is a ten course tasting menu

Tasting menu

Restaurant tasting menus offer small portions of several dishes as a single meal. Some restaurants and chefs specialize in tasting menus, while in other cases, it is a special or a menu option. Tasting menus may be offered to provide a sample of a type of cuisine, or house specialties, or to take...

 which lets the diners taste a sample of many of Gaddi's famous dishes.

The wine cellar

Wine cellar

A wine cellar is a storage room for wine in bottles or barrels, or more rarely in carboys, amphorae or plastic containers. In an active wine cellar, important factors such as temperature and humidity are maintained by a climate control system. In contrast, passive wine cellars are not...

 is among the best and largest in Hong Kong, with a collection of rare vintage

Vintage

Vintage, in wine-making, is the process of picking grapes and creating the finished product . A vintage wine is one made from grapes that were all, or primarily, grown and harvested in a single specified year. In certain wines, it can denote quality, as in Port wine, where Port houses make and...

s.

In a 2006 Independent

The Independent

The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...

feature on romantic dining, author Alexandra Antonioni wrote:

"They don't make restaurants like this any more and everyone should dine at Gaddi's at least once in their lifetime. Nothing can touch it for glamour and sheer indulgence."