Review Acqua Restaurant Phuket ~ Few vs Many Few vs Many

Review: Acqua Restaurant Phuket

So staying in Phuket gives you a lot of options to eat amazing food. That part you already knew. But we found it strange that – next to the Acqua Restaurant Phuket – there aren’t that many very good restaurants in Phuket which don’t belong to a famous hotel right next to it. Luckily we were able to try out Acqua Restaurant Phuket.

The restaurant is located a bit remotely (15 minutes outside the notorious Patong) but very easy to reach by taxi. The outside (and interior) doesn’t really justify what ends up on your plate. We don’t want to be negative, but the interior felt crowded and a bit forced. It looks like the designers really wanted to give it a super designery look and feel. But design is supposed to be functional and minimal, and that’s not really happening inside Aqua.

That’s it for the part we didn’t really like.

We enter the premises on a somewhat quiet night so we get an extreme amount of attention from the very well dressed staff. Also, chef Alessandro Frau swings by and tells us a bit about the place and what we’re about to experience.

The eating starts with different kinds of bread with all sorts of olive oil and butter. The stuff is definitely home made and we’re certain that this is going to be a good night. The wines are served but it’s too bad the waitress doesn’t really speak Englishvery well, so she does tell us something about it, but we can’t really understand/remember. But that’s ok.

Next up is a plate of oysters with different kind of flavors (which is served in a very awesome way). Some hot, some sweet but all very good. After that we receive some real Sicilian shrimps with caviar followed by scallop carpaccio with truffle. After that came again a carpaccio but this time it’s made with slow cooked (14 hours) octopus. Oh boy, this food is amazing. Please let it continue!

And of course it does. We get 3 other courses. Some saffron risotto with lobster caviar and cheese followed by scallops with duck and some sauces which where awesome but the names we forgot. Dessert where frozen mini cannelloni with pistachio ice-cream.

Thinking back at the night we spend at Aqua makes us want to go back. The location and exterior/interior fooled us big time. Alessandro is a master in the kitchen. His courses are simple, sophisticated and extremely well flavored. Afterwards we thoroughly thanked him for the food and told him he would be one of the reasons to travel back to Phuket in the near future. And that was maybe of the biggest compliments we could give at that moment.