Tatler Dining Best Restaurants Hong Kong & Macau

If the last year has taught us anything, it’s that progress is never linear. While 2021 was considered at the time a comeback year for the restaurant industry in Hong Kong (protected as we were from the Covid-19 pandemic with near-zero infection rates locally), 2022 was a reality check long due: the fast-spreading Omicron outbreak essentially broke the dam, forcing the city into crisis mode, and the F&B industry into a fight for survival. For many restaurants, this was one straw too far—many finally succumbed, among them some of the city’s oldest and most well-loved institutions. But like the first verdant shoots sprouting through charred soil in the wake of a forest fire, new restaurants and bars continued to open—and existing ones flung open their doors at the earliest opportunity—taking their…

Follow Mally at @cheungmally The Work: Nightbirds “My piece is devoted to Hong Kong-style tea restaurants, where I have spent countless mornings and afternoons admiring the beauty of the interior decor and the iconic food. The oldest ones have been around for 60 years or more. Recently, many famous tea restaurants with long histories have closed, so I created this visual memoir to pay tribute to all the places that brought us good food throughout the years. The name of the artwork is taken from a neon sign that I found in an old photograph; and it’s a nod to one of my favourite paintings, Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks, which also depicts a scene from a diner.” When did you decide to become an illustrator? Ever since I was little, I have always had…

OFF MENU AT HOME March – April 2022 While 2021 ended on a high note for the F&B industry as the city’s pandemic restrictions entered their most relaxed state yet, the arrival of Omicron at the beginning of 2022 changed all that. It was a heartbreaking time, with shops shuttered and the 6pm dinner ban reinstated. In a bid to support our restaurant partners, we introduced Off Menu At Home, where the collaborative thread underlining our flagship food festival was translated into the format of a fine-dining programme that delivered four-hands dinners straight to diners’ doors. By following a video demonstration of the participating chefs in action, the kits could be easily reheated and plated for the full restaurant-grade experience at home. ON THE MENU The collaborators Jim Lofdahl (Embla) & Agustin Balbi (Andō) Eric Räty…

SÊ´P 19/F, H Code, 45 Pottinger Street, Central, Hong Kong sephongkong Lai Sun Dining’s newest concept is helmed by chef Dobee Lam, who oversees a state-of-the-art open kitchen turning out Indochinese wood-fired cooking. ONIKU KAPPO JIKON Shop 506, 5/F, K11 MUSEA, Victoria Dockside, 18 Salisbury Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong kappo_jikon Replacing Tominokoji Yamagishi in K11 Musea, this intimate nine-seater kappo restaurant centres on premium Hiyama Wagyu beef and is helmed by chef Makoto Ohtani and okami (head hostess) Hiromi Nomura. RACINES 22 Upper Station Street, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong racineshk.com Opened by the team behind Bouillon, this cosy bistro is named after the French word for roots, in a nod to the shared upbringing of chefs Romain Dupeyre and Adrien Castillo (formerly of Petrus and Caprice, respectively) in the southwest of France. Expect a highly seasonal menu of…

One of Antonio Oviedo’s fondest memories of bread is running through the empty cobblestoned streets of his mother’s village in the Spanish region of Extremadura, having wrapped up a night of drinking with his friends, honing in on the smell of freshly baked bread at the crack of dawn. “We used to have this super hot bread straight from the oven—we were burning ourselves. And I remember that, of course, I was, like, 16 or 17 when I started to drink with my friends. Bread, for us, it’s something that we grow up with. The first thing that you eat in Spain when you are a kid is bread.” That same bread is served today at Oviedo’s Spanish fine-dining restaurant, Agora, nestled within the colonial arches of the Tai Kwun Centre for…

Yung Kee The lovely bones Founded by Kam Shui-fai as a dai pai dong in 1936, this 86-year-old establishment has stood in its current location on Wellington Street since 1964. A major HK$60 million renovation in 2021 had been a long time coming—the kitchen hadn’t been updated in four decades, says third-generation owner Yvonne Kam. “People think that we took advantage of Covid to close, but we’d been thinking about it for a long time,” she says. “In the old days, my grandfather and my father were very reluctant to close for a big renovation—they were afraid that customers would go elsewhere and not come back.” The multi-level space offers plush surroundings with fun contemporary flourishes, and the menu has been trimmed and rejigged. Its raison d’être remains ever relevant—there is nothing…