Essen at The Pinnacle

The Essen at Pinnacle is an indoor food court on the park at the Pinnacle @ Duxton (nearby the intersection of Yan Kit Rd/​Craig). There are 150 indoor seats and around 60 outdoor seats. Convenient pagers are used by all stalls, and buzz you when your food is ready for pickup. We visited on a weekend once and had to wait for a table. Over 5 visits, we have tried 3 stalls (+ the beverage stall) and have never had a bad meal.
Two Wings: Their chicken wings are great! Flavourful and crispy. I wasn’t as much of a fan of the onion rings and fries sides. Those seemed undercooked and limp. But the Chicken is good!
Garcons: The lamb and the crispy pork belly were both delicious. Served with mash potatoes. You’ll be scraping the plate for every last bite of flavour.
El Jefe Corner Stall: The Wagyu Steak Burger ($ 13) and Braised Beef Cheek ($ 14) are both top notch. The burger is small, but OMG the flavour! I have had the Steak Burger 3X now and can’t bear the thought of not ordering it on each return visit. (See photos of these 2 items)
Beverage Stall: Craft beers, homemade ice tea, chilled canned drinks, friendly staff.
In addition to the stalls we have visited, there’s also an Italian Pizza/​Pasta stall and a Thai stall.
THE GOOD: The Food, the clean, civilized indoor food court environment, the décor, the lighting, the location, the staff
THE BAD: In my opinion, they don’t market Essen very well. There is no website that lists the stalls or features the menus of each stall. The Essen FB page only advertises it as a food court and outside of the beverage promotions posts, they’re not saying very much. They should be posting features on each stall and photos of their gourmet quality dishes. I’m not sure what they are hiding.
No Serviettes! At these prices, they should be giving customers a real napkin and not tissues (on request) Minus 1 star for not rising up above regular food court practices!
THE VERDICT: For a high-​end indoor food court, this place has a lot going for it. Even with higher prices than a normal food court, the quality of the gourmet food is a good value. Matched with a civilized air conditioned atmosphere, it’s definitely worth a visit.

My family decided to drop by after meeting a contact who lived at Pinnacle @ Duxton. We were lulled into a false sense of security by the nice ambiance and the availability of some craft beers. Maybe we ate from the wrong stalls, or maybe not. But we were so unsatisfied that once we got home, we whipped up some comfort snacks to make good.
This food court has 7 stalls:
Italian: The tagliatelle bolognese has to be the worst pasta dish I’ve ever eaten in my life. Even my toddler who loves guzzling plain, uncooked pasta rejected it. Should have tried the pizzas instead (I saw more pizzas on other tables than pastas).
Drinks: They’ve some beers on tap, and some bottled craft beers. Pints start at $ 8 but water starts at $ 5. The craft beer selection isn’t as great as the façade suggests, given that we’ve reached peak craft beer and literally even hawker centre beer shops stock craft beers. I was a little put off by the high price of water — this ain’t some uppity restaurant, its a damn food court.
Seafood: We ordered two dishes, the mussels and the grilled salmon. The former was rather bland and flavourless, with a soup that felt like nothing more than water and MSG; the latter was a steak cut with bones.
Two Wings: The wings were very nicely presented. They were also well-​fried and juicy — they must have brined the wings. Unfortunately I think they were over brined. My entire family found them too salty and couldn’t eat more than 1 wing each.
French: did not try
Grilled meats: did not try
Thai: did not try
We spent $ 25 per person.