New | For Hong Kong’s cocktail hipsters - funky venues are in

Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, Spanish entrepreneur Juan Martínez Gregorio and his architect business partner, Hugh Zimmern, had to pick this one.

The old table tennis hall in the basement of a once nondescript, now trendy neighbourhood in Sai Ying Pun, which opened as gin and tonic bar Ping Pong 129 Gintonería in March 2014, had – they believed – the right bones to draw in Hong Kong’s growing crowds of cocktail-sipping hipsters: patrons are in turn spawning a new wave of themed nightlife venues across the city.

Meanwhile, a trio of Canadians in Jonathan Bui, American Eric Lam and Hong Kong local Shakib Pasha, owners of F&B company Ming Fat House, have recently opened a second speakeasy-themed whisky bar, Foxglove, in Central. Their first venue, Mrs Pound, opened in Sheung Wan a year earlier.

The design of Foxglove, by Hong Kong architect Nelson Chow Chi-wai, is based around the globe-trotting adventures of a wealthy character called Frank Minza , who “may or may not be” fictional, the owners say. Before patrons even get to see the glamorous, first-class plane, train and cruise ship-styled vintage interior of Duddell Street’s newest establishment, they need first to walk through an umbrella shop, and locate the button on the right brolly to gain access to the bar’s concealed entrance.

The idea of “hidden” – a design the partners first trialled at Mrs Pound, a speakeasy secreted behind the façade of an old Chinese stamp shop – works well in Hong Kong, says Jonathan Bui, because it’s so different from the typical in-your-face shopfronts.

“It’s kind of sequential,” adds Chow, principal and founder of NC Design & Architecture. “We don’t present everything at once; you have to discover it one at a time.”

Ping Pong’s architect Hugh Zimmern agrees.