Pleasure Principal

The food is great at The Principal, but, as christina ko asserts, the stories behind it are even better

THE BEST MEAL you’ve ever had isn’t about flavours or seasonings, textures or tastes. Meals that dominate your memories are inevitably about stories: the lasagne your grandma used to make for Sunday lunch; the dinner at which your sweetheart proposed; the time you drank so much you don’t even remember the food, but it sure was a good time.

One thing that the Press Room Group (PRG) has always been good at is translating stories into restaurants. Most of their venues thus far have subscribed to a loose journalism theme: the flagship Press Room, the new News Room, the casual Classified. There’s The Pawn, which comes with its own tale of rescue and rejuvenation, transformed from down-at-heel pawn-shop to queen-bee eatery. And now there’s The Principal, the group’s luxe-cuisine debut.

The Principal tells its stories from the coveted spot where Cinecittà once stood. Its name pays homage to the fact that before the Starcrest residential complex was built at this address, a school once stood there; its principal was the late mother of PRG co founder Paolo Pong.

The plot of this tale thus centres around school days, with interiors that take inspiration from British academy chic, but with a modern update – plaid banquettes in pastel earth tones that seem totally divorced from schoolgirl miniskirts; private rooms dubbed The Study and The Library that offer similar isolation as their namesakes, but without the associated bookishness; booths set behind open door frames so that they line up like classroom entryways. It’s not all education-themed gimmickry – the marble-topped centre counter is littered with cheeses on pedestals like a cake shop, and copper-toned touches across the space lend a bit of warm industrial jazz.

Over lunch with PRG Wine Director Kavita Faiella and Director of Operations Olmo Fernández, quite a bit of “storytelling” (a thinly disguised euphemism for gossip, of the schoolgirl variety) goes down with the food and drink. And that’s exactly what the idea is – despite falling into the category of fine dining, The Principal is at its core a down-to-earth enterprise, where the laughs are meant to be loud instead of politely hushed, the food heartily savoured instead of elegantly nibbled.

Faiella’s enthusiastic introduction to the restaurant begins with the comprehensive atlas of wines, more jam-packed with intelligence than your average textbook, featuring some 700 varieties ranging from typical old-world choices to super-new-world experiments from the likes of Turkey and Slovenia. The selection is broad, including a special seasonal section of choice verticals, each with its own history essay.

The curation process, she divulges, was no cakewalk. Sourcing wines from emerging regions involved some amusing tasting sessions: “There were so many bad ones that when I finally picked what I thought were the good ones, I had to do a second-round tasting to make sure that they actually were good, and not just that my palate was relieved to taste something that wasn’t horrible.”

Faiella joined the company just over a year ago and can be considered responsible for the recruitments of Fernández and Chef Jonay Armas, both former colleagues of hers from their days at Amanresorts. The rapport between the trio is clear, and has unquestionably helped The Principal overcome the normally bumpy opening period, during which many restaurants fumble before achieving their groove.

Armas is somewhat more reticent than his friends, but his talent lies with cuisine rather than dialogue. It’s certainly no cafeteria fare, despite being influenced by the homemade food of his childhood.

The menu is European inflected, without hailing from any particular region. A crab starter is formed into delicate cylinders, artfully placed to create a pretty presentation, paired with pear and ginger chutney as well as pickles for a seemingly unusual combination that’s surprisingly harmonious and easy on the palate. Freerange egg is cooked at 63 degrees – one degree below the temperature at which it solidifies – for some 40 minutes until it reaches a perfectly quivering consistency. Paired with ceps, artichoke heart and shaved black truffle, it’s strong on flavours without being overwhelming, the egg acting as a liquid blanket to parcel it all together. Smoked eel is served with herring roe, pineapple ice cream and tomato textures, and though I’m not fortunate enough to try it (a girl has to draw the line somewhere, and that line for me comes after starter numéro deux), I make a mental note to return for it later.

The superlative suckling pig, too, comes with a sidebar explanation: cooked for 12 hours until the meat falls off in chunks, it’s a slow- and-steady-wins-the-race kind of dish, but while down-tempo cooking methods are very much de rigueur of late, this one is paired with red endives in a pomegranate reduction, and a lemon purée that’s just the right amount of tart to amaze and amuse the palate.

Dessert is as cluttered as a Jackson Pollock canvas, but with more identifiable individual elements – Fernández makes us go around the table identifying one aspect each. After correctly labelling yogurt sorbet, honeycomb, strawberries and pistachio purée, I’m stumped by a purple sponge cake I’m later informed is violet-infused and “baked” in the microwave. It’s a fun little journey, as innovative as it is handsome.

From a tasting perspective, the conditions of this lunch haven’t been the most ideal – too much conversation tends to mar the experience of savouring each individual element of the menu. But as a meal, it has been memorable indeed. Each instant has become one chapter in a longer narrative: the detailed explanations behind each wine pairing and cooking method, the pledges to branch out and try one new restaurant in Hong Kong every week, that first bite of lemon-accented pork, the group gush over a suave Amanresorts GM who will remain unnamed, the collection of glasses that grows with each course and my inability to finish the wine, the promise to indulge in a karaoke gathering at a later date. When it comes to food, The Principal certainly measures up against any of Hong Kong’s fine-dining establishments. But it’s the atmosphere, so nostalgic and conducive to warmth and happy moments, that will make it a meal worth remembering.