There are moments in your life that fall very clearly into before and after category. You know the ones I mean; I’m fairly sure you’ve had a few of your own.

My birthday dinner on August 18th, 2022 was one of those moments.

A restaurant. A night. A menu I’ll never forget. So much so that the very nature of that meal has quietly shaped how I review; and, yes, internally score – every meal I’ve eaten since.

It was the kind of food where the opening dish was a ten out of ten, yet somehow each course that followed was better than the last. A constant recalibration of what you thought was possible. Not so much redefining “ten out of ten” as casually nudging the scale to eleven… then twelve… and so on.

Yeah. That kind of meal.

Aulis is a one Michelin star restaurant that, in my mind, punches well above its weight. In fact, it was comfortably better than any two- or three-star meal I’d had in Hong Kong. It’s an intensely intimate experience: Just fourteen seats wrapping around the kitchen, putting you right in the middle of the action, face-to-face with the chefs as they work.

Aulis sits next to Roganic and serves as the group’s experimental kitchen, part of Simon Rogan’s global stable of restaurants; a group that seems to collect Michelin stars with alarming ease while quietly reshaping the culinary landscape wherever it lands. At the helm is head chef Olly Marlow, who oversees several of the group’s restaurants worldwide and who came to wider attention after dominating a series of Great British Menu competitions, much like Rogan himself did 20 years prior.

I’ve never been to Rogan’s three‑star flagship, L’Enclume, in the Lake District, though it’s firmly lodged on my bucket list. If Aulis is any indication of what’s possible, I can’t really imagine how food gets much better than this. When it happens, it will be something to savour.

From the moment we arrived (greeted with a personalised birthday menu) to the moment we left, my definition of what truly great fine dining looks like was permanently recalibrated. Even now, every dish I eat is measured against that experience. I can’t help but compare it to those seemingly effortless, exemplary plates at Aulis; each one a perfect ten.

What began as a special-occasion restaurant quickly became our go‑to, and we returned often during our final two years in Hong Kong. Ironically, its closure mirrored our own departure from the city. Roganic moved out in preparation for a new location (post coming), and at the time of writing, remains unopened.

I can only hope they find a new home soon.

When they do, I’ll happily be on the next plane back to Hong Kong for just one more taste of perfection!