Restaurant Review!

Sift l Sheung Wan l Hong Kong

Ah yes. The allure of the dessert restaurant where you can order a piece of cake, a coffee, and then linger for hours. I’ve always wondered how these places can stay in business as the turnover must be painfully slow, overhead high and margins relatively small. More often than not, they seem to be projects of passion as the products are generally very high quality.

Sift is a beautiful dessert spot that seems to be one of these pet projects. The room is wonderfully designed with a bar where the desserts are constructed with sushi like precision and a courtyard that gives you no inkling that you are in one of the densest, most vibrant cities in the world.

Our deconstructed Rainer cherries with napoleon cake was well presented but flawed at the outset as reducing it to dollops of custard sandwiched in pastry squares and sliced cherries destroys the cohesion that lets the ingredients work together to bridge their weaknesses and strengths. My cheese plate with poached pear was decent as the cheeses were well selected by the candied walnuts were syrupy and the poached pear bland.

I really want Sift to work but it the food just comes across as being someone’s personal hobby as opposed to a well thought out and orchestrated creation. There are ideas at play but the execution isn’t experienced enough. The hefty prices though are one side of the equation that makes sense at least.