Summer Palace Iconic Wine Lunch - Hong Kong

More than 10 years ago I visited Summer Palace in Beijing. Once an imperial garden during the Qing Dynasty, the area is now a UNESCO heritage site.

"Summer Palace" here in Hong Kong is not a garden. Instead it is a high-end restaurant that still shares some of the former's imperial grandeur. This Michelin-starred restaurant inside the Shangri-La serves refined Cantonese fare, shares a Master Sommelier with Petrus (upstairs), and regularly holds unique and interesting wine lunches and dinners.

Our friends invited us to one such wine lunch at Summer Palace last year.

As we rode up the elevator at the Shangri-La to Summer Palace, we couldn't help but notice an awe-inspiring painting. This impressive wall mural, called The Great Motherland of China (大好河山), is the largest silk mural painting in the world. It is 16-stories high and it took 40 Chinese artists 6-months to complete it.

Summer Palace Wine Lunch

Summer Palace Hong Kong Iconic Wine Lunch — As we entered the room, we got a first look at the featured wines of the wine dinner. Wow.

Master Sommelier Yohann Jousselin oversees the wine platform for all Shangri-La restaurants in Southeast Asia, and spends over half his time in Hong Kong. The Shangri-La group of restaurants regularly holds wine lunches and dinners, both at Summer Palace and also at Petrus, upstairs.

They come at different price points, from more casual Wine Lunches at the Lobster Bar (HKD888 per person) to the flagship Iconic Wine Experiences that can cost up anywhere between HKD25,000 to HKD$58,000 per person (the latter including a super rare Petrus 1947).

The wine meals focus on different themes, and often provide opportunities to try older and rarer wines.

Iconic Lunch Series

This particular wine lunch focused on wine from 6 different regions in France, including a blind wine. It was part of the Iconic Lunch series, and costs HKD$3988 per person.

Here's a look at our meal!

We began with a special 2000 Dom Perignon P2 (short for "Plénitude 2"). This aged champagne is deep in color and complex in flavor. Even though you normally wouldn't decant a champagne, our sommelier recommended doing so for this wine.

A lovely way to start the meal.

Summer Palace is known for its refined Cantonese fare.

Blind Wine - 1960's

1970's Mouton Rothschild

We tried them side-by-side, a mystery "blind" wine from the 60's and the Mouton-Rothchild from 1970, paired with the claypot rice.

Dessert

The meal was lovely, but it was the unique wine pairings that really made this meal fun and special. Food was delicious, the service was excellent, and the overall lunch was relaxed and interesting.