Popular US seafood restaurant Red Lobster to open in Hong Kong
- Beyoncé sang about it, Nicki Minaj worked there, and now Red Lobster is coming to Hong Kong
- The restaurant promises high-quality, sustainably harvested food at a reasonable price. ‘People don’t need another fine-dining restaurant,’ says man behind it
Despite five months of growing anti-government protests in Hong Kong, which have reduced spending in the city’s bars and restaurants, entrepreneurs are still taking the plunge and opening new places.
One of them is David Martin, whose company will open a branch of Red Lobster, a well-known American seafood restaurant, in Causeway Bay’s Fashion Walk late this month or in early December. It will offer dishes including fresh lobster, popcorn shrimp, clam chowder, surf & turf, and Red Lobster’s Cheddar Bay Biscuits.
Martin, chief operating officer and co-founder of FWM Restaurants Group, says he is excited to be bringing to Hong Kong “quality seafood at affordable prices”. By affordable, he means a 450-gram (1lb) live lobster for HK$298.
Martin is familiar with the Hong Kong market, having operated Morton’s the Steakhouse and The Butchers Club, and has also opened Red Lobster in Shanghai’s IFC Mall and in Sanlitun in Beijing.
“This is what people need. They don’t need another fine-dining restaurant,” says Martin. “We want to see local families eating at Red Lobster.” In the US, he says, it is a restaurant where young people go on a first date, families gather for dinner on weekends, and elderly couples share plates.
In Hong Kong, as well as the live lobster – available cooked five different ways – snow crabs, king crabs and Dungeness crab will be on the menu. With some of the dishes coming in American-sized portions, Martin expects Hong Kong diners will share them.
This is what people need. They don’t need another fine-dining restaurant. We want to see local families eating at Red Lobster
Hong Kong-exclusive dishes will include salted egg shrimp, and milk tea panna cotta for dessert. Martin says the plan is to continue adding more dishes aimed at the local market.
As a founding member of the Global Aquaculture Alliance and Ocean Conservancy, Red Lobster buys seafood that has been caught sustainably. Crabs and lobsters of a certain size are caught at specific times of the year, while the shrimp it serves are a mix of wild and farmed.
