Hong Kong's nightlife may at times feel stiflingly homogenous, but the buzzword on the scene this season is 'change'. With the closure of Lan Kwai Fong's iconic California Tower and a crop of new hot spots that have shifted Central's revellers towards Wyndham Street and beyond, the city's clubbers are expecting to finally see something fresh.
Joshua So is head of operations at Hyde, a members' nightclub that opened on Lyndhurst Terrace in July. He notes that the venue brings to Central a two-floor experience, allowing people to shift the tempo of their night up and down in one place.
'On the third floor, it's an all-day chill-out lounge. On the second floor it's a club where you can party hard. Guests might start their evening upstairs, move downstairs and then, towards the end of the night, come up again to wind down.'
The design of the club - industrial, urban and weakly evocative of New York's meatpacking district - is right on trend, behind bars like Lily in Wyndham Street's LKF Hotel and 208 on Hollywood Road, both of which opened earlier this year. Of the venue's chic but ambiguous name, So jokes: 'It's like Jekyll and Hyde. Downstairs is definitely the sinister [one].'
He touts Hyde as a pioneer in the area people are calling 'Wellinghurst', at the intersection of Wellington Street and Lyndhurst Terrace. Alternative nightspot Bassment has held court in the neighbourhood since its relaunch under new ownership earlier this year, and recently opened Paisano, a surprisingly popular late-night pizza joint next door, has added to the street's low key, after-hours vibe. If the new kids on the block get their way, things are about to get a lot more posh.
Sheung Wan, too, is undergoing its long-promised gentrification, and Andrew Lewis hopes that his new nightclub, Republik, which opened in M1NT's old space on Hollywood Road in September, will provide a sophisticated retreat far from the madding crowd.
The absence of a dance floor is obvious. Lewis pumps his fist in the air like an Ibiza clubber - 'It's not really like that here,' he explains. Despite opening until the small hours on weekends and cultivating a roster of international DJs such as Benny Benassi, this is a club in a more refined sense. It will hold its grand opening on December 1.