What's For Dinner?
HK Magazine finds out which dining trends are hitting our tables this year.
When it comes to food fads, we Hongkongers are like moths to a flame. The lure of something new and interesting is too much to resist, which is why you’ll find dining trends taking hold here unlike anywhere else on earth. For years, molecular gastronomy and fine dining has led the charge, our poor wallets following suit, but eating in Hong Kong today is a far simpler affair. What’s on the menu this year? A return to quality over presentation and more basic, rustic dishes. Hungry already? Read on to learn more.
Trend #1: New York, New York
Living in Hong Kong, you’d think we’d have had our fill of fast-paced city life, but it seems we just can’t get enough of the pace and glamour of New York—well, its restaurants at least. This year, we have seen many new restaurants open that have a modern New York-style concept. Be they nostalgic 1900s-NYC eclectic, or a more casual Big Apple setting, they are charming, unique and welcoming—and they’ve all become instant hits.
Liberty Exchange Kitchen & Bar
The team who brought you the fine private kitchen Liberty Private Works opened Liberty Exchange this year at Exchange Square. Dramatically different from the original premises, this new two-storey Liberty channels the vibe of a casual New York bistro. The cuisine is also bistro-chic, with head chef Makoto Ono’s usual fine-dining flair tuned to creating luxed-up comfort food, such as four cheese mac n’ cheese, or a peanut butter and jam sandwich with foie gras. Chef Makoto has also brought in soul food influence with deep-fried chicken and waffles.
Two Exchange Square, 8 Connaught Place, Central, 2810-8400
Lily and Bloom
Never before have we seen anything so immaculate and lustrous in this town as Lily and Bloom, the brand new restaurant and bar in LKF Tower. Brought to us by the Buzz Concepts folks, mostly known for their clubs Volar and Halo, Lily (the bar) and Bloom (the restaurant) take us back in time with an industrial romantic decor that reminds us of New York’s prohibition-era speakeasies and Parisian salons, thanks to the design by New York firm AvroKO. Within Lily is The Blind Pig (another name for a speakeasy), a private cigar and whiskey room decorated with cute little pig heads with eye patches (pirate pig!). The kitchen is awfully generous in that it closes at 2am on weeknights (3am on weekends), serving excellent handmade tagliatelle, roasted bone marrow, a North Carolina-style fried quail with cornbread, game hen with babaganoush and apple and cranberry crumble with cinnamon ice-cream.
Lily and Bloom, 5-6/F, LKF Tower, 33 Wyndham St., Central, 2810-6166
208 Duecento Otto
Also catching onto the New York trend is the new Italian restaurant and bar 208. Designed by Turkish design team Autoban, the venue is like a neighborhood digs in NYC, featuring rustic bohemian decor with solid walnut floors and quirky white and blue ceramic tiles on the walls. And nothing’s more New York than having a chef straight from the Big Apple favorite Babbo Restaurant—Chef Vinny Lauria delivers his rustic Italian fare with antipasti served on wooden palettes and Napoli-style pizzas from their oven. Old-school cocktails with a glam twist are also on offer over the marble-top bar, such as the New York Sour or just a straight up Hildago Fino sherry. Smooth.
208 Hollywood Rd., Sheung Wan, 2549-0208
Posto Pubblico
Italian fare with a Brooklyn edge is what Posto Pubblico strives for. This new SoHo restaurant has a super high ceiling and big open dining room that recalls the bistros in New York. Using dark woods, pseudo-Medieval-style lights on the ceiling, and sepia photos hanging on bare brick walls, Posto gives you the impression for a split second that you’re in SoHo NYC, not SoHo SAR. Posto’s kitchen does Brooklyn-influenced Italian comfort food such as the veal meatballs, the “Brooklyn Special” sandwich of breaded eggplant, balsamic and homemade mozzarella and the signature “Grandma’s Pie” Sicilian pizza.
28 Elgin St., Central, 2577-7160
Trend #2: Have A Cuppa
Gone are the days when Starbucks would battle it out with Pacific Coffee for dominance of the caffeine scene. This past year we have seen the rise of several new coffee boutiques—and they’re not just your neighborhood holes-in-the-wall. These places put a lot of emphasis on your cuppa, and aim to up the ante where our growing coffee culture is concerned.
Holly Brown
This new café on Stanley Street, located right next to the famous Luk Yu Tea House, is a lovely addition to the coffee scene. Its pleasing sky blue palette and the comfy, 4,000-square-foot space instantly draw you in—but that’s just the package. Holly Brown has hired award-winning Australian master roaster Domenic Spadaccini to roast the coffee beans at the café every day, which are then made into coffee with a top-of-the-line Victoria Arduino espresso machine. It serves everything from a ristretto (a stronger, smaller espresso) to a Holly Brown Tango, which is a gelato with a shot of espresso on top.
22 Stanley St., Central, 2869-9689
This Sheung Wan dig has become a coffee lover’s haven, with arguably the best coffee in town. It also organizes coffee gatherings from time-to-time for fellow bean fiends and baristas, which, funnily enough, are known as barista jams. Using two top-notch coffee machines, La Marzocco and Orchestrale, Barista Jam has created its own popular blend, which mixes beans from Columbia, Brazil and Ethiopia that the café’s owner sourced himself.
Shop D, 126-128 Jervois St., Sheung Wan, 2854-2211
Cafe Punta del Cielo
This cute little café on Wellington is in fact an outlet of a popular café chain in Mexico, with over 100 outlets in its native country. It produces its own coffee blend made with beans selected from a specific area in the mountains at an altitude of 1,400 meters, giving it an exceptional flavor. Cafe de Olla is one of its specialty coffees, which has a very strong cinnamon scent and flavor. Expect delish Mexican snacks, rather than cheesecake, to go with your coffee.
78 Wellington St., Central, 2366-1977
Trend #3: Raising the Steaks
Admit it—once in a while, all you want in a meal is a big slab of meat. And the city’s restaurateurs know this all too well. In the past year, we have seen an influx of new steakhouses around town—in fact, one restaurant group even closed a couple of their old establishments in order to revamp them into steakhouses. And to lure you back over and over again, each of these new steakhouses have their own niche, hoping to offer something a little different from your run-of-the-mill steak restaurants.