• Macau Home
• What's On
• Features
• Restaurants
• 
• 
• Bookmark this site

Situated in a quiet spot on the southern flank of the MGM Grand Macau’s ground floor, alongside the cobblestoned courtyard, French restaurant Aux Beaux Arts is endowed with a comfortable environment devoid of the stuffiness inherent to many other restaurants of its class. Seating on a large patio by the courtyard, with views of ye olde European architectural facades, offers the most relaxed option, while couples can enjoy the intimacy of the lower-lit interior – although if they want to hold hands, they’ll have to stretch far across the large tables.

Aux Beaux Arts’ waiting staff is friendly and knowledgeable: our chief waiter knew the menu like the back of his hand, and had the confidence to steer us away from the lobster soup towards the (less expensive) truffle and potato soup as a way to start the meal. It proved a masterstroke, as the subtle flavours blended together in a creamy but light concoction that complemented the New Zealand Pinot Noir (Cloudy Bay; $150 per glass) and set the scene for the heartier fare to come.

The menu, as you might expect, is extensive and heavy on rich and full-bodied ingredients. Among the casseroles, seafood, caviar, duck liver, and other meat mains, we recommend the pepper steak ($350), which a waiter flambéed with red wine just steps from our table. Apart from being a generous slab of meat, it was also soft and juicy, while lacking in fat. The only let-down was that it came served with deep-fried wedges. We can’t extend the same compliments to the braised lamb shoulder baked with parmesan ($200) – a boring pie-like dish that amounted to less than the sum of its parts.

It’s difficult to fault Aux Beaux Arts, though, and if you follow you waiter’s advice, enjoy the mood, savour the good wine, your nerves will no doubt be settled by the time you hit the roulette table. Hamish McKenzie

Aux Beaux Arts, MGM Grand Macau, Avenida Dr. Sun Yat Sen, NAPE, Macau, +853 8802 3888.