Gia, in Hanoi, is a Michelin-starred restaurant offering creatively reinterpreted Vietnamese cuisine. It’s good, but creativity has its limits: the property had a hard time drawing me into its dining experience and almost lost me along the way.
Unlike Saigon, Hanoi has a plethora of gourmet restaurants, including three 1-star restaurants. After an in-depth study of the menus (and prices), Gia seemed to offer the most interesting promise.
The concept of Gia
Gia is a restaurant that aims to reinvent Vietnamese cuisine using modern cooking techniques.
The menu
The restaurant offers a single tasting menu.
– Monkfish | Caviar
– Red Bissau shrimp | Seaweed
– Beef tartare | Betel leaves
– Aralia leaves | Guava leaves
– Marbled eel | Cassava
– Grape | Peach
– Squid | Crab roe
– Greasyback shrimp | Celtuce
– Quail | Salted egg
– Wagyu beef | Pineapple
– Rice | mushrooms
– Coconut
– Lotus | Longan
Does that sound long and copious to you? In fact, you’ll see that this is not the case at all, and that there are a few tricks up the sleeve that make this menu look richer than it is.
The setting
The lighting is subdued but not too dark, and there’s a soft pop music background that’s not at all aggressive.
The meal
I’m welcomed and seated at my table on the second floor where the restaurant is located. I won’t understand what the downstairs room is for until the end of the meal.
I’m invited to sit at the “chef’s table”, a one-person table located close to the kitchen, from which it is separated only by a glass wall.
They start by bringing me a welcome drink of watermelon with ginger and chocolate.
Then they bring me a plate. It’s going to take me a while to figure out that these aren’t appetizers, but the first three courses on the menu (when I tell you the menu has a few tricks up its sleeve….). So in theory I’ve got Monkfish | Caviar, Red Bissau Shrimp | Seaweed and Beef Tartare | Betel Leaves
The monkfish and caviar mixture will be rather plain and I won’t be able to feel either of them.
The tartare is fresh and very tasty, excellent. Surprising, because at first glance you wouldn’t think that’s what it is.
The shrimps are fresh and have a little taste.
It’s a bit of a disorienting start. You think of amuse bouche and at the end you realize that the first three dishes on the menu have just arrived, after having struggled to identify them.
A bit like losing your bearings at the beginning of a meal.
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