Butchers Club Grille restaurant review: Hong Kong’s fallen meat and burger masters opened a new surf and turf destination … to underwhelming results
- With both dry and wet-aged meats on the menu, such as Australian M3 Wagyu strip loin, as well as crab cakes and sea bass … only the sides of broccolini and truffle fries were adequate
The rise and fall of The Butchers Club is a curious story. After opening on Wan Chai’s Landale Street in 2014, the meat masters quickly established a reputation for serving the best burgers in town, which led to many accolades and them featuring in the Hong Kong Michelin guide for a number of years. The brand opened branches around town and even expanded into the mainland with the bold aim of holding 15 branches there by 2018. Fast forward to 2022 though and there is a solitary Butchers Club Burger branch in Hong Kong, three left in the mainland and a steakhouse in Bali.
Overexpansion certainly led to declining standards in the past, perhaps explaining the retrenchment. Having closed branches in Wan Chai, Central, Tsim Sha Tsui and Quarry Bay, Butchers Club Grille arrives at a pivotal time for the brand. The new concept aims to be a surf and turf destination, the menu a mix of dry and wet-aged meats plus seafood offerings.
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Our crab cakes arrive first (HK$168). Individually they’re plump and nicely seasoned, but just two for the price feels a little stingy. A 200g fillet for a main of roasted sea bass (HK$188) also feels a little meagre. The fish is nicely cooked, with a particularly crisp skin, but the honey miso sauce that accompanies it is excessively sweet and unnecessary.
Our Australian M3 Wagyu strip loin (HK$228) looks like something out of the freezer from Wellcome. We asked for it medium rare but it arrives rare, yet somehow with the texture of meat well done. The flavour is bland and it’s hard to tell this is any sort of Wagyu. Perhaps the grill was having an off night as halfway through our meal the restaurant starts to fill up with a noticeable amount of smoke from the kitchen area. At least the broccolini (HK$68) and truffle fries (HK$58) are adequate.
Dessert is another disappointment, though. The creme brûlée (HK$88) has a pleasant creaminess – but we have to force our way through a layer of sugar crystals to get there.
G/F, Westland Gardens, 12 Westlands Road, Tai Koo
