Pasta, pizza and tiramisu? Italian food is so much more, say four chefs in Hong Kong who are redefining our understanding of the country’s cuisine

Antimo Merone of Hong Kong restaurant Estro elevates homey southern Italian food to fine dining; Radical Chic’s Andrea Zamboni deconstructs common dishes

German-born pair Roland Schuller and Bjoern Alexander make creative use of Italian ingredients at Octavium in Central. ‘There are no boundaries,’ Alexander says

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Wagyu ravioli from Radical Chic, one of the Hong Kong restaurants helping to redefine our understanding of Italian cuisine. Photo: K. Y. Cheng

Published: 12:45pm, 2 Dec 2021

Antimo Merone is sitting in the private dining room at his popular restaurant Estro, in Hong Kong’s Central district, trying to explain a seeming contradiction.

On the one hand, Italy is a young country – it was formed in 1861 to unite what was previously a collection of fractured states – and there was no national cuisine to speak of. Major differences existed in the food from region to region, and even between households.

Dishes such as pasta carbonara and tiramisu (which non-Italians automatically associate with Italian food) are relatively modern inventions. And yet the cuisine appears bound by unofficial rules, with many restaurants worldwide featuring the same rustic, stuck-in-time dishes.

Merone cites pasta carbonara as an “emblematic” example – it must be made with egg, guanciale (cured pork cheek), cheese and dried pasta. Nothing else.

Chef Antimo Merone from Estro in Central. Photo: Jonathan Wong

“Certain things are so strongly part of our tradition that we must do it this way, because it touches our heart,” says Merone, who attended a culinary school run by Gualtiero Marchesi, a chef considered the father of modern Italian cuisine.

Meddling with a recipe can cause conniptions. “We are very strict on that, which for me, is a bit of nonsense … everyone is free to do whatever they want in terms of creations, as long as you respect the ingredients.”