.png)
At Carna by Dario Cecchini, a Cult Cut Returns — and the Butcher's Knife Keeps Moving with the Rare Tour Dinner Series
HONG KONG
High above Tsim Sha Tsui, on the 39th floor of Mondrian Hong Kong, Carna by Dario Cecchini has spent the past several months proving that a steakhouse can still surprise its regulars. The restaurant's Rare Tour dinner series — a rotating, four-hands celebration of beef craftsmanship — sold out three times in a row, and rather than let its most talked-about discovery fade into memory, Carna is now folding it into the everyday menu, alongside a fresh run of seasonal dishes.
The dish in question is the 28-Day Dry-Aged Friesian Beef Porterhouse, a cut that stole the show when it first appeared during Rare Tour in June 2026. Sourced from the fertile Po Valley in northern Italy, Friesian beef is not the breed most diners associate with a classic Italian steakhouse — it is denser in character, less about delicate marbling and more about depth. Carna's team spent weeks testing ageing windows before landing on 28 days as the point where the beef's flavour turns rich and faintly nutty without sacrificing tenderness. Finished the way nearly everything at Carna is finished, over high-heat charcoal, the Porterhouse comes to the table with a deeply caramelised crust and a smokiness that lingers. It is not a small commitment: at HK$2,088 for 1.2kg, the cut is built for sharing among four to six people, and it will only be available on Thursdays and Sundays through September, with the kitchen capping service at five portions a night.
The Porterhouse's return is part of a broader programme Carna calls Butcher's Secret Cuts, an ongoing effort to bring lesser-known cuts — the ones prized by butchers rather than menus — into the spotlight. That instinct traces directly back to the restaurant's namesake, Dario Cecchini, the Tuscan butcher whose reputation precedes him by decades. Anointed "the world's greatest butcher" by The New York Times and introduced to a global audience through his episode of Netflix's Chef's Table, Cecchini carries eight generations of family butchery into every dish he touches. Working alongside Executive Chef Billy Yau, he has built Carna's new seasonal offerings around the same nose-to-tail conviction that defines his work in Tuscany: nothing on the animal goes to waste, and everything, treated properly, has something to say.
That philosophy shows up plainly across the new menu. A plate of Fritto di Trippa (HK$228) takes tripe most kitchens would discard early and turns it into something worth ordering on purpose — slow-braised with rosemary and Dario Salt, then fried until the outside shatters and the inside stays tender, finished with an Italian herb sauce and a squeeze of lemon.
The Risotto ai Gamberi (HK$388) applies the same head-to-tail logic to seafood: a whole Sicilian red prawn, its shells simmered down into the stock that cooks the rice, finished with prawn oil, a crisp cracker, and a spoonful of red-prawn tartare for contrast.
For dessert, the Crostata di Ciliegie (HK$188) is a straightforward, well-executed classic — a lattice tart of house-made Italian cherry jam paired with Sicilian olive oil ice cream. And for diners chasing something rarer still, Carna has added the Blonda Española (HK$1,680 per kilogram), a 28-Day Dry-Aged OP Rib from one of Spain's most storied heritage cattle breeds, chosen specifically to show off its balanced marbling and pure, old-fashioned beef flavour.
READ: Niccolo Changsha Hotel Review: Inside Hunan's Highest Address, 452 Metres Above the Xiang River
The kitchen is not the only part of Carna experimenting. On the drinks side, the restaurant has quietly built a reputation for its pairing dinners, moving beyond its established Italian wine evenings into a cocktail-and-dish pairing dinner that debuted in August under Head Barman Jason Yu and Chef de Cuisine Billy Yau. It sold out in under two hours. A second edition is set for September 17, and the team has signalled that more of these one-off dining events are coming.
The accolades have followed. Carna debuted at No. 78 on The World's 101 Best Steak Restaurants list and has held a Recommended listing in the MICHELIN Guide Hong Kong & Macau for two consecutive years — recognition that, more than anything, seems to have encouraged the restaurant to keep pushing rather than settle into a fixed menu.
Carna by Dario Cecchini is open nightly from 6:00pm to midnight on the 39th floor of Mondrian Hong Kong, 8A Hart Avenue, Tsim Sha Tsui. Reservations can be made online, by phone at (852) 3550 0339, or by email at carna.hk@mondrianhotels.com. All menu prices are subject to a 10% service charge.
Comments