Costes Downtown is the sister restaurant of Michelin-starred Costes. The setting is elegant and the presentation is refined, but unfortunately, the food was a major disappointment for me.
The complimentary petit four was a beautiful black leaf-shaped pastry with a crispy texture and a bean paste filling. It looked impressive, but unfortunately, it didn’t taste very good. The bread course came with two croissants and a tangy butter sauce, which apparently contained sun-dried tomatoes. Again, it was interesting, but not particularly enjoyable.
The mushroom consommé was beautifully presented, with the broth poured tableside from a teapot over the mushrooms. The green scallion oil also showed a lot of attention to detail. However, despite the elaborate presentation, the soup itself was surprisingly bland and lacked depth of flavor.
For the main course, I had braised beef neck. Unfortunately, the meat was rather dry and lacked seasoning, while the lentils were far too salty. I’m also not a fan of celeriac. I really didn’t want to waste the food, so I ended up eating about 3/4 of it by dipping the meat into the sauce.
Dessert was a pear and cranberry mousse with coconut mochi. The mousse had a rather unusual appearance — it honestly looked a bit like a 🧠 — but thankfully, it tasted much better than it looked. It was filled with small pieces of pear, with cranberry jam in the center, a nutty layer underneath, and a yellow chocolate coating on the outside. The cranberry jam and buttery cookie crumbs on the plate were a nice touch. The “mochi,” however, wasn’t really mochi at all. It was more like a coconut-flavored milk pudding with shredded coconut, and I didn’t particularly enjoy it.
Unfortunately, I didn’t finish any of the courses. While the presentation was undoubtedly beautiful and the restaurant clearly puts a lot of effort into technique and detail, the flavors simply weren’t to my taste.
After spending 10,900, I honestly left feeling quite disappointed and felt that it wasn’t good value for money.
Yoyo Chou
- Wednesday 07/10/2026