Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Address: Shop 404, 4/F., Citic Tower, 1 Tim Mei Avenue, Admiralty 金鐘添美道1號中信大廈4樓404號舖

Telephone: 2363 2500

https://www.bricklane.com.hk/main/

Founded by three bankers who felt nostalgic for British comfort food during their college days, the Brick Lane Group is a restaurant group that offers quintessentially English dishes in their hip, artistic and edgy venues, inspired by the vibe and bustle of Brick Lane in East London. The restaurant group currently operates five outlets in Hong Kong – Brick Lane TST and Brick Lane Gallery in Tsim Sha Tsui, Brick Lane CITIC in Admiralty, a bakery called Brick Lane Sweets and a Japanese yakitori restaurant Takagi.

We visited Brick Lane CITIC on a Sunday, a branch that is well known for their outdoor patio which has a nice sea view and offers a breathing space in the city centre.

(1) We started the meal with some black truffle fries ($68). While the taste of the truffle mayo was intense and satisfying, the french fries were a tad greasy.

(2) The deep fried chicken wings ($69) were deliciously crispy on the surface and nicely tender in the middle, but were just a bit too dry.

(3) The clam chowder ($98) was completely not what we had expected, and not in a good way either.  It tasted like boiled cream and there was no hint of the taste of clams at all.

(4) Nothing brightens up my morning like coffee and burgers do, and the U.S. Angus beef cheese burger ($165) was exactly what we were looking for. A disappointment, however, awaited us – the beef was bland and did not taste like Angus beef. The temperature of the steak was only lukewarm and it was also wincingly stringy (so stringy that you can literally see the strings in the photo below).

(5) Fortunately, the desserts fared much better than the dishes that preceded them. The red velvet mini cake ($48) looked adorable with its alternating red and white tiers and tiny rose bud on top, and it tasted decent too.

(6) The shiso green tea cake ($48) looked ornate with a bunch of edible white icing flowers on top of it. The green tea flavor was detectable, and the cake tasted acceptable overall.

While Brick Lane CITIC is quite a popular venue known for their laid-back ambience and beautiful desserts, some of the dishes that we ordered did not taste so pretty. I do hope their kitchen can improve over time, as this is such a beautiful and artsy space!