Help the food critic complete her savage restaurant review.

The chef's signature dish was beautifully presented; _____, it tasted like salted cardboard.

The correct answer is however.

However acts as a conjunctive adverb here, connecting two independent clauses. It typically follows a semicolon and is followed by a comma. Although and though are subordinating conjunctions and cannot be used with this semicolon-comma punctuation pattern. Despite is a preposition and must be followed by a noun phrase, not a full clause.