O Dio Mio - what a mess

My lifelong favourite fare is Italian. In my opinion, there are regrettably few impressive offerings at the higher end in Beijing (Sadler, Barolo and Danieli’s being notable exceptions) which is unfortunate for what has to be a world city. Upon hearing of Mio at Four Seasons, and reading excellent reviews, my friends and I obviously booked without delay.

Restaurants at Four Seasons Hotels around the globe have amassed an impressive collection of Michelin Stars. They have done a particularly exceptional job with the kitchens in Hong Kong and Macau (which boded well for Mio). They truly live up to the name Four Seasons.

If Mio is representative of the chain’s most recent addition in Beijing it should probably be rebadged One Season as that’s about as long as it should last before the hospitality vet takes it outside and tells it to look the other way before putting it out of our misery.

The fare is priced definitely at the high end – not far off Maison or the excellent restaurants mentioned above, though the quality is well, well below.

The menu is a strange blend of pizze and fusion cuisine with an emphasis on Italian flavours through most of the dishes. Out of the six food focused diners at our table, very few of the items “jumped out” at anyone.

The pizze (which we had to try just to see what they were like) were pleasant enough – probably at or a bit below the standard of Gung Ho! or The Tree (closer to the latter, though with a slightly thicker base).

Regrettably, the main courses caused much angst in terms of whether “underwhelming” or “uninspiring” was a better description. Out of the six different mains, one was acceptable though the rest would have been pretty disappointing for a run of the mill Sanlitun mid-tier, though, as mentioned, this was by no means priced anywhere near that. Perhaps the head chef (who surely was not in attendance - well, One hopes in any case…) could send his staff to Mosto to work out how to do a braised veal cheek properly (Mosto’s is actually normal beef rather than veal though is a vastly superior offering). Some of the menu items were adventurous (risotto filled pasta) though failed miserably in execution.

Fortunately the bread was very good. If you go there perhaps bring some cheese with you to have with a few courses of bread – you could be the envy of your table by the end of the night.

The dessert menu wasn’t much to look at, which was fine given the sad faces around the table after the mains and the service.

Speaking of the service, it was the clear highlight of the evening. That is, it was so bad that it was actually impressive. If it were better, it would have been merely atrocious, though it was comically beyond that. Not knowing where the menu was, not knowing items on the menu once said menu was located, leaving glasses empty for ages (to the point we just decided to locate the wine and pour ourselves), unable to divide the total of the bill by the number six even with a calculator (they don’t split bills but we wanted to split the fa piao). Even after someone at the table demonstrated how to divide one number by the number six utilising the wonders of modern electronics, we waited for an inordinate amount of time for the fa piaos. Remember – this is a marquee restaurant for an international five-star hotel in the capital of the largest nation in the world.

The décor is pleasant enough though doesn’t seem to hang together on the whole. The wine list, whilst not amazing value, is reasonably extensive, though you may need to get up and go find it yourself.

Overall, a resounding “meh”. Really disappointing night out. Think carefully, or at least give them more time to get someone in to fix the place, before spending at that level for this standard.