Il Presidente: Where Hong Kong Meets Italian Glamour

Sprezzatura is one of those Italian words that loses something in translation. “Effortless elegance” gets close, but misses the point. It describes a particularly Italian confidence, a way of making things appear wonderfully natural. At Il Presidente in Hong Kong, that idea runs through the room, the food and the drinks. On Duddell Street, it also shapes the choreography of hospitality. Everything feels deliberate, yet entirely at ease.

Duddell Street’s historic granite steps and century-old gas lamps rise through the vertical density of Central. Alongside them appears a startling sunset-orange façade. Step through it and Hong Kong gives way to an imagined Italy of rosewood, leather, velvet, deep carpeting, white tablecloths and low amber light.

Il Presidente comes from chef Marcello Scognamiglio and restaurateur Félix de Arriaga Balanzat, the duo behind the hugely popular Trattoria Felino in Wan Chai. But this is not Felino dressed up for Central. The 70-seat restaurant and cocktail bar is more polished, more theatrical and deliberately glamorous.

The founders describe its world as the golden age of Italian hospitality and, rather wonderfully, Italy’s “VHS glamour era”. It is not a historical period so much as a collective memory of one: late-1970s and 1980s Italy refracted through cinema and television, populated by power brokers, fur-draped socialites, big cars, long lunches and even longer dinners. Glamour with a little excess around the edges.

Il Presidente’s Italian Design Lineage

American architect and designer Sean Dix created the interiors. The founder of Hong Kong-based dix design+architecture has shaped some of the city’s most memorable restaurants. After studying at Domus Academy in Milan, Dix worked with Ettore Sottsass, the radical Italian architect who founded the Memphis group. That lineage informs his interpretation of late-twentieth-century Italy’s exuberance without slipping into caricature.

Dix describes communication with the client as fundamental to his approach: “My job is to help them reinforce their message; support the identity they want to communicate.” His projects begin not with decoration but with space planning, movement and the guest experience, and it shows here. The velvet, rosewood and deep carpeting provide the seduction, but underneath is a restaurant that works. Banquettes encourage settling in, tables are intimate without becoming isolated, and light pools where it should. There is richness without clutter and, for all the talk of excess, remarkable restraint.

Italian Classics and Tableside Theatre

At Il Presidente, that balance carries into Scognamiglio’s “new classic” Italian food: regional dishes that remain recognisable rather than being dismantled in pursuit of novelty. The cooking is generous, indulgent and, importantly, fun.

Egg Tartufato, a delicate potato and truffle foam presented inside an eggshell, recalls Felino’s much-loved Carbonara Egg. Homemade agnolotti filled with ossobuco comes with Parmesan fondue and toasted pine nuts. Ricotta and spinach fill an enormous cannellone. Meanwhile, Costoletta alla Valdostana conceals melting Fontina and smoked ham beneath a golden breaded veal chop.

Then the theatre begins. The team carves a whole roast suckling pig at the table, revealing tender meat beneath spectacularly crisp golden skin. It is the sort of dish that stops conversation for a moment. Later, the team churns and whips Gelato al Tavolo tableside into a gloriously soft, creamy finish.

The Art of Italian Hospitality

The pleasure extends to the service. Carlo Speranza, Il Presidente’s Maître di Sala, has been a familiar face in Hong Kong Italian dining for decades. His career spans Grissini at Grand Hyatt Hong Kong and Isola. Grissini was famous for the extraordinarily long, crisp breadsticks that give it its name. They were almost as loved as the restaurant itself.

At Il Presidente, Carlo remembers people, watches tables, talks, introduces and somehow seems to be everywhere without hovering. Restaurants can spend fortunes creating an identity; he is a reminder that hospitality ultimately comes down to how someone makes you feel.

Cocktails at Il Presidente Hong Kong

Head of Bars Simone Ciambrone brings experience from The Ritz London, Donovan Bar at Brown’s Hotel, The Dorchester and Bvlgari Ginza Bar in Tokyo. His opening list of 12 cocktails travels through modern Italian history and popular culture rather than falling back on the familiar Negroni-and-Spritz repertoire.

Whiskey e Sole takes its cue from Vacanze di Natale, the gloriously excessive 1983 Italian comedy, reworking an Old Fashioned with almond liqueur. Piazza Duomo moves into aperitivo territory with peach, raspberry vinegar and sparkling wine, while Amores Extranos borrows its name from Italian pop star Laura Pausini. The references are clever, but they are not homework. You do not need to know the film or the song to enjoy the drink.

As the restaurant fills, the references and all the thinking behind them begin to recede. The music rises. Drinks move across the bar. The team carves porchetta, carlo moves between tables while conversations lengthen. Lunch slides into afternoon, aperitivo into dinner, and dinner into the sort of evening nobody seems particularly interested in ending.

That is Il Presidente’s real trick. Beneath all the glamour is a restaurant serious about design, food, drinks and service, but it never feels too serious about itself. The pleasure is immediate.

By the following morning, I was already telling everyone I knew to go.

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For more of Anji’s discoveries, read Hong Kong Favourites, New Obsessions and More.