The annual Le French GourMay is just around the corner. In the coming days, you will feel the French atmosphere hit Macau in a wave. For those who can’t wait for next month, Privé at Sofitel Macau at Ponte 16 has started to preheat the French celebration with their new À La Carte Menu.
Located at the heart of the old city, Privé showcases the glittering views of Macau’s UNESCO heritage sites. Helmed by Chef Jeffrey, who has developed professional skills with fine food in the course of his wide-ranging experience in several 5-star hotels in Southern China and Macau, the restaurant offers unique contemporary French cuisine with an Asian twist. If there were any doubts about Chef Jeffrey’s ability to take on the restaurant, they were soon forgotten.
Jeffrey worked with Chef Georg Schroppel, a disciple of legendary American Chef Thomas Keller, for three years. “He was a real mentor to me and he taught me how to work efficiently and above all how to respect food,” Jeffrey told Essential Macau. “I owe a lot to Chef Georg who made me realize that if you think some ingredient is not good, it’s just because you don’t know it well enough.”
The new à la carte menu offers four starters, two choices of soup, seven main courses and three desserts for guests to choose from. At first glance, the presentation of Chef Jeffrey’s dishes produces a beautiful effect, as pleasing to the eye as it is to the palate.
The chef enjoys exploring the possibility of using local ingredients in the preparation of French style cuisine and taking inspiration from daily life. For the Chef’s signature dish, Slow Cooked Pork Belly, he uses some of the ingredients included in the preparation of the Chinese cuisine-pork belly, with French truffled potato puree, purple sweet potato chips, spring onion and ginger oil. He says the dish reminds him of his childhood in the 1970s when pork was a rare treat.
Chef Jeffery is also good at fusion cuisine. He combines the French cooking technique with Japanese ingredients to present another must-tried dish, the slow cooked Salmon. Fresh salmon paired with seaweed, salmon roe, dill tempura and fresh mustard seeds cream sauce, offering a surprise at every bite.
More highlights on the menu include Burgundy Style Ravioli of Snails, Slow Cocked Farm Egg with Sautéed Forest Mushroom, Brioche & Bacon Sauce and Chestnut Soup with Toasted Bread, and Duck Leg Confit with Black Truffle.
*Editor-in-Chief, Essential Macau
