Restaurant loved by Bruce Lee, famed for its roast pigeon and featured in Hong Kong films, looks to the future
- Owner of the Lung Wah Hotel restaurant in Sha Tin reflects on the good old days when martial arts film star Lee was a regular customer, and look to the future
- The Chung family plan to expand their offering to include Western food and open a music school on the premises
Hong Kong’s Lung Wah Hotel, famed for its roast pigeon, is in a compound tucked into a hillside just steps from the railway track in Sha Tin new town.
Built in 1938 as a rural retreat, Lung Wah was turned into a combined hotel and restaurant in 1951. The guest rooms were closed in 1985, but the restaurant soldiered on and the founding Chung family plan to celebrate its 70th anniversary next year by taking it in a new direction.
“We have to move with the times and attract a new clientele, while staying loyal to our traditional customers,” says Vincent Chung, 27, who now runs Lung Wah with his mother, Ma Lai.
“What we have in mind is a separate restaurant which will serve Western food, and a music school aimed at budding violinists and pianists from Sha Tin and further afield. Of course, our plans depend on what happens with the coronavirus, but we’re very confident.”
Lung Wah, whose boxy architecture and brightly coloured walls earned it the nicknames “Square House” and “Red House”, has a chequered past. Not long after the official opening in 1939, the owners – Vincent’s grandparents, bullion dealer Chung Sau-cheung and his wife, Chan Yun-wah, who ran a soap factory – had to move out because Lung Wah was requisitioned by the Japanese army.