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This week in PostMag: the Mariners’ Club returns, bistros boom, and Miffy
Hong Kong’s Mariners’ Club returns as a neighbour to the luxury Kimpton hotel, China’s hottest new food trend, and a destination to rival Amsterdam
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The first time I stayed at a Kimpton was this past spring, on a trip to Koh Samui, Thailand. The vibe? Lush, laid-back and “ridiculously personal”, just as I learned their tagline promises. I left well-fed, mildly sunburned, slightly obsessed and thrilled to discover a Hong Kong outpost was in the works.
It was only later that I heard the local debut already had its own prequel (I’m new here, remember?), one that involved scaffolding, smoke and a skyline-lit blaze that made headlines in March two years ago.
This week, Gavin Yeung revisits that very site, where the newly opened Kimpton Tsim Sha Tsui Hong Kong now rises – glossy, sky-high, glittering with Baccarat crystal and, how very 2025, with a Hyrox gym coming soon. But the return of the Mariners, the humble seafarers’ club located beneath the Kimpton’s sparkle, is perhaps the most unlikely twist and a very Hong Kong story: old and new pressed up against each other, luxury and legacy, layered atop each other like an architectural mille-feuille. And yes, the fire gets a mention.
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In Shanghai, Xinrou Shu takes us into the smoky, sour-spicy heart of China’s hottest food trend: the bistro boom. Think chilli-soaked cocktails, Guizhou comfort food and an unapologetic Gen Z ethos that shrugs off perfection. It’s a fascinating evolution of Chinese cuisine and social space, proudly regional and deeply rooted in a new kind of Chinese cool.
And back in Hong Kong’s northern wetlands, Christopher DeWolf joins a team rethinking our vanishing fish ponds. Theirs is a modest revolution: solar-powered cranes, birdwatching decks and the radical idea that conservation might be better achieved by keeping things … useful.
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If you’d rather travel farther afield (or at least imagine it), Ron Gluckman’s journey through Utrecht offers a peaceful, canal-lined alternative to Amsterdam’s chaos. Bonus points for Miffy.
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