Eating where the locals eat is something of a cliché. It all feels a bit 1970s now that social media and mass distribution of decidedly average, self-indulgent food blogs (guilty!) have made it easy to research your dinner down to the brand of soap in the toilet before you even leave the house.
There was, I think, something fantastically whimsical and naive about my parents’ generation walking past the window of a local restaurant on holiday, spotting someone who looked a bit foreign and, after a short, hurried conversation, deciding to eat dinner there on the basis that it is “where the locals go”.
This logic has tripped me up on more than once occasion. I distinctly remember feeling rather queezy after a bad plate of mussels from a summer holiday as a kid, having been promised before that “it’s what the locals eat”. Sometimes it turns out the locals are just as clueless as the rest of us.
Judging by the comically long lines I pass at McDonalds every morning before work, it turns out that, even when you live in a food mad city like Hong Kong, a lot of people who live here make poor choices. In some twisted reality there is a large white American tourist justifying ordering a big mac and fries for breakfast as “it is what the locals eat”.
I will confess I am not above this. After all, it is the easiest of traps to fall into. If I hear someone speak even a single word of Japanese at a neighboring table when I try a new Japanese restaurant, I will be the first to loudly and proudly exclaim that “this is where the locals go, so it must be good”. We are all charlatans at heart and sometimes it just feels good to indulge yourself.
As a city known for business travelers, Hong Kong has its fair share of spots traditionally occupied by homesick businessmen and businesswomen craving a taste of the familiar. So as I sat down at Sagrantino, an unassuming Japanese-style Italian restaurant in Central, supposedly frequented by self-same homesick Japanese expats I was on full alert. Even the merest suggestion of a “konnichiwa” from a nearby table would have set me into cliché bingo mode “I heard Japanese at the table next to us, so this place must be legit!”.
As it was, the table next to us did speak Japanese. And it was legit. Japanese Italian may not sound like a thing, but I’ll tell you that it certainly is and should be more of one. We had a few dishes to share at the start, the highlights of which were a delicious tuna tartare with wasabi sauce and a deep purple beef carpaccio with some peppery rocket and parmesan. Mains were a combination of fairly saucy pastas and secondi type meat dishes. The little strokes of Japan – some fish roe here, a salty deep sauce there, were enough to suggest the chef had said “konnichiwa” more than a few times in his life.
It’s not expensive or posh. It is just glorious, simple Italian food made with Japanese hands and sympathies. Italians might turn their noses up at it as a bastardisation of their cuisine, but frankly who cares. I’m not sure if the locals in Japan eat it, but the locals here in Hong Kong sure should.