Notoriously, people who try to predict the future can end up talking a load of old crystal balls. But that's not going to stop us trying. And so, with 2011 poking its nose over the horizon and the first hangover of the new year looming, we've assembled some of Hong Kong's leading luminaries from a range of cultural spheres to tell us what they think the coming 12months will bring.
FOOD
Gaia Group director Pino Piano says the challenge for 2011 will be to find niches in an already crowded market - but says this is a good problem to have, stemming as it does from the range of options Hong Kong has to offer. 'We've reached quite a high standard in Hong Kong, and I don't know how much we can add to this huge melting pot. At the moment we have the best of so many cuisines,' he says. 'We're sitting in quite a comfortable place in the city; the secret of our success is we work harder than anyone else.'
One thing he feels is missing is a good selection of high-quality, affordable, mid-range European restaurants - 'somewhere that's cheap, but still has good food' - something he expects to change in 2011.
The cloud on the horizon for Clayton Parker, founder of Eclipse Restaurant Group, is the growing cost of restaurant premises in sought-after areas. 'One of the most difficult issues for restaurant operators is rent,' he says. 'In prime areas, it's reached such a high that margins for people who've been there a long time are getting squeezed. Restaurant operators are looking further up and further out - we'll see restaurants on higher floors, and new restaurant ghettos developing.'
Those could be in areas such as West Kowloon and Kennedy Town, he adds. But outside the restaurant world, some of 2011's best food suppliers could have no physical premises at all. 'One of the things we're going to see more of is food via e-commerce - there are online purveyors of things such as fish, organic vegetables, steaks and wine that have better produce at lower prices that supermarkets. There was no online food business here two or three years ago. Again, it's because bricks and mortar sites are too expensive.'