New vegan and vegetarian restaurant menus in Hong Kong that are winning hearts and bellies, from plant-based Cantonese fine dining to fake foie gras

Raw vegan restaurant MA … and the Seeds of Life offers playful and clever creations for an experience that is ‘fun, fresh, feel-good and cruelty-free’

Kömune’s vegetarian chef says the restaurant’s new menu will ’push the boundaries of cooking with vegetables’

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Raw vegan restaurant MA … and the Seeds of Life, by French chef Tina Barrat (pictured), is the one of the newest additions to Hong Kong’s meat-free dining scene. Photo: Jonathan Wong

Published: 12:17pm, 28 Jan 2021Updated: 12:47pm, 28 Jan 2021

Outside Bordeaux is a vegan restaurant called ONA, which stands for Origine Non Animale. Just last week – five years after it opened – it made international headlines as the first vegan restaurant in France to win a Michelin star. ONA’s success is indicative of the global rise of plant-based dining, a trend that has been increasingly embraced in Hong Kong.

Raw vegan restaurant MA … and the Seeds of Life, by French chef Tina Barrat, is one of the newest additions to the city’s meat-free dining scene. It sits in a brand new block in the heart of Central on Hong Kong Island that occupies part of the site of the atmospheric old Graham Street produce market.

Filled with light, the dining room is elegant and understated, reflecting Barrat’s former career as a designer, while the dishes she creates are similarly thoughtful in look and execution. It reflects a new confidence in vegan dining.

“When I opened my first restaurant, people were scared. You’d say ‘vegan’ and people would run away! In the last few years people are trying it more and many come to us with allergies, especially dairy allergies,” Barrat says.

Chiaviar, cashew cream and quinoa blinis at MA … and the Seeds of Life in Central, Hong Kong. Photo: Jonathan Wong

Her mission is to draw a “conscious dining crowd, vegan or otherwise – foodies all, seeking a destination dining experience that is fun, fresh, feel-good and cruelty-free”.

She explains that raw vegan is “food consumed at a fully raw state, soaked, sprouted, dehydrated at low temperatures, or gently warmed up, which means it is packed with its original nutrients density”.