Taking over the space formerly occupied by Alba on the 10th floor of The Cubus in Causeway Bay is Town. In line with the concept of urban dining, the design has a modern and industrial feeling instead of a tropical Hawaiian vibe. The 3,000 square foot main dining area has a warm timber tone that juxtaposes with concrete and red brick walls, and natural sunlight floods in through floor-to-ceiling windows in daytime. The restaurant also contains a tiny balcony for smokers, a narrow yet rather cosy bar plus a private room that can accommodate up to 12 persons. Reserve a seat by the window and come on a quiet night (perhaps a Sunday) so that you don’t feel guilty about hogging that table for hours.

There’s a few instances of restaurants combining two of the world’s powerhouse cuisines: Italian and Japanese. Rarely, however, is this done particularly well. Town’s fusion goes beyond ‘intriguing’ to become revolutionary. The Town’s cuisine takes classic, rustic Italian dishes and peppers them with some of those magic Japanese flavours/ingredients/elements: miso there, ponzu here, a little bit of edamame or tempura. The menu is refreshingly small though the choices are all so tantalizing that making a choice is still a chore.

When making your choices it is well worth saving some room for dessert. The chocolate ball with praline cream, crispy chocolate and chocolate soil is theatrical, sumptuous and delicious. You need to really like chocolate as it is pretty rich. For a (slightly) lighter option the Yuzu Souffle with Vanilla Ice Cream is incredibly tasty.

To start, the Sicilian Red Prawn Carpaccio is refreshing and delicate yet packed with flavour—a fusion success including black truffle caviar and yuzu.

The Short Ribs “Wagyu” Truffle Potato, Green Beans may not go all out on the fusion side of things but the flavours are incredible—rich tender meat, crunchy fresh green beans and truly sumptuous truffle potato.

Like the food menu, the wine menu is also rather bijou. However, the bottles have been well chosen to provide for a range of tastes and servers are keen to recommend bottles based on personal preferences and pairings with meals.

It’s hard to fault the service at The Town, dishes are brought promptly and accompanied by an explanation and no request goes unfulfilled.

The Town provides an evening of refined dining with a little twist for what would usually get you middle of the road fare in Soho.