Which Hong Kong restaurants have the best service and ambience? Inside 100 Top Tables 2023 award winners, Chinese restaurant Wing and Magistracy Dining Room, which evokes London gentleman’s club vibes
- Before running contemporary Chinese restaurant Wing and Michelin-starred Vea, chef Vicky Cheng flipped burgers at Dairy Queen in Canada – and got noticed by a 5-star hotel restaurant manager
- Meanwhile, Black Sheep Restaurants’ Magistracy Dining Room sits in one of Hong Kong’s oldest, most historic buildings and a declared monument, explains Syed Asim Hussain
One day a restaurant manager from a nearby five-star hotel came for lunch. She was so impressed by his service that she gave him her business card and told him a job was there waiting for him.
Cheng says he does not have a formula for training staff, only guidelines. When he assesses potential new staff, it is less their experience that he focuses on – experience is a bonus, he says – but rather their innate desire to care for others. Service, for him, is about being natural and speaking from the heart.
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“Are they the kind of person who opens a door and instinctively looks behind them to see if they can hold it open for the next person?” he says. “The best service staff are magicians who provide guests with what they need before they even ask. They are astute at adapting to situations and reading people. The more experience you have the better you mind-read, but it starts with being good-hearted.”
It has not been an easy few years for restaurants, or those who work in them. But Cheng was able to retain all 60-plus staff he employs over both his restaurants (he also runs Vea on the floor below Wing in the Wellington Building in Central) through the pandemic. Sometimes he was short-staffed with many employees struck down with Covid-19, while at others staff outnumbered demand, so he had to reduce their hours to avoid letting staff go.
The best service staff are magicians who provide guests with what they need before they even ask
“As owners we wanted to keep the business going, we didn’t want to lose staff or money,” he says. “But when things are up, we’re there, so we need to be there when things are down, too.”
Service is crucial to a guest’s experience of a restaurant – “if there’s good food but bad service, it’s unlikely a guest will come back,” says Cheng.
But ambience plays a big role, too. Syed Asim Hussain, founder of Black Sheep Restaurants, who run this year’s 100 Top Tables Best Ambience award winner, Magistracy Dining Room, says it comes down to provoking emotions in a guest.
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“An atmosphere transports guests out of the here and now and evokes feelings within them, whether it’s a sense of familiarity, nostalgia or joy,” says Hussain. “Ambience brings guests back time and time again because of how it made them feel.”
There was one significant change to the historic interiors, however, which involved much back and forth with the Hong Kong Antiquities and Monuments Office: the addition of a spiral staircase that connects the mezzanine to the ground floor.
“The upper level used to be where the public would observe the trials, but we transformed it into a semi-private dining room. It was important to us that this room felt connected to the main dining room,” says Hussain.
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Other additions, such as the technology integral to running a restaurant today, are tucked away out sight or blended into the aesthetic as much as possible.
From the paintings hanging on the walls to the flowers on tables, and the cuisine to the music, each detail works to build an ambience of sophistication. Service is refined, with elegantly dressed captains providing polished service that echoes the refined grandeur of the space.
“We hope that guests feel they are part of something when they enter the room, witnessing history in the making,” says Hussain.
