The area around Wan Chai's Sun, Moon and Star streets offers a haven from the city

Not long ago, I overheard a conversation between a middle-aged French-Canadian couple standing on Moon Street, guidebook in hand. "Apparently, this is one of the last authentic neighbourhoods left," said one of them, looking around. "You know, with little shops and low density, as opposed to all those giant monstrosities you see everywhere else."

It wasn't an unfair assessment. Through a quirk of geography, Star, Sun, Moon and St Francis streets have become an island of tranquility in a congested city. Settled in 1889, when Hong Kong's first power plant opened nearby, the area was for decades a working-class residential enclave. That changed after 2004, when Swire Properties opened Three Pacific Place, which attracted thousands of office workers and a new crop of bars and restaurants to make their office-bound lives more tolerable.

Even as the high-rises encroach, the neighbourhood's dead-end streets, narrow alleyways and leafy squares retain their quietude, a quality complemented by an eclectic range of businesses that see the area's calm as an asset.

"All of this makes the neighbourhood very precious," says architect Christopher Law. Three years ago, Law's firm, the Oval Partnership, worked with Swire and the government to revamp the area's public spaces. "We wanted to create spaces that the whole community will use as an extension of their flat; spaces where everyone feels welcome," he says.

SIP

Wake up the Hong Kong way with French toast and milk tea at Duk Yu, a cha chaan teng on St Francis Yard. Grab a seat indoors, where menu items are scrawled in black marker on the white-tiled walls, or on the street next to the green tea stall that is one of the city's last surviving dai pai dong.