Opinion | Restaurants hit by soaring Hong Kong rents
The streetscape is changing as restaurants are being replaced by jewellers and clothes shops
A word to the wise: restaurant operators had better own their properties or they risk being at the mercy of their landlord.
Naozen, a well-known Japanese eatery in Central that is partly owned by chef Naoyuki Sato, closed last Saturday after the landlord decided to lease the property to a telecommunications company at a monthly rent of about HK$1 million.
That is three times the rent Sato was paying of about HK$300,000 a month. So, he had no choice but to close the premises he co-founded nearly a decade ago.
Last week, almost all the who's who in the Japanese community in Hong Kong went there for a last meal and to bid farewell to Sato.
Among them were senior executives of Japanese brokerage Nomura and camera-maker Nikon as well as Hong Kong movie stars.
As a chef in Tokyo, Sato started his career at the prestigious Nadaman group of restaurants preparing traditional dishes for Japanese prime ministers, politicians, business leaders and celebrities.
He arrived in Hong Kong in 1994 when the company sent him to be the executive chef at Nadaman's in the Kowloon Shangri-La hotel. But when his employer wanted to send him back to Japan in 2003, he opted to quit and set up shop under his own name with some partners.