Hong Kong On A Plate

HONG KONG HAS MORE RESTAURANTS PER square kilometre than almost anywhere on earth. If that isn’t enough, there is a number that tells you everything you need to know about this city’s relationship with food: 77. That’s how many Michelin-starred restaurants exist in this city of seven million people. To add to that, the city recently swept up the top two spots at Asia's 50 Best Restaurants, with The Chairman taking the number one spot and Wing in second.

This is where the XO sauce was invented and where a roast goose shopfront in Wan Chai holds a Michelin star. The Cantonese tradition here is old and unforgiving. The kitchens are technically demanding and historically deep. The chefs who come out of it carry that weight seriously.

Immigrant cuisines have been absorbed here, and the bar scene, which has produced some of the world's best cocktail programmes in the last decade, is so good that it could hold its own against the likes of New York or London.

To understand what Hong Kong has built, you have to walk it. Not just the polished rooms of Central or the hotel dining floors of Tsim Sha Tsui, but the whole chaotic, layered, delicious thing.

In most world cities, food is a horizontal experience. In Hong Kong, it is vertical. Within a single skyscraper in Central or Causeway Bay, a diner can experience a masterclass in French technique at a three-star establishment like Amber, then descend four floors to find a cutting-edge Japanese omakase or a refined Sichuan bistro. It is also perhaps the only city where a billionaire and a backpacker might share the same culinary obsession.

Start in Sham Shui Po, the working-class district in Kowloon that is as far from the fine dining circuit as you can get and still be one of the most important food neighbourhoods in the city. Here, you will find the dai pai dong – Hong Kong’s iconic open-air food stalls – that appeared as early as the 19th century. From 200 stalls at their peak to just 25 now, you will still find them packed every night, serving congee, rice and noodles from green-painted steel kitchens.

Move into Central and the density of serious cooking becomes almost absurd. This is where the fine dining circuit runs — Amber; Caprice; L'Envol; Lung King Heen, the first Chinese restaurant in the world to hold three Michelin stars — but it's also where you find Bar Leone on a backstreet, where one of the world's greatest cocktail programmes runs out of a room that looks like a Roman neighbourhood trattoria.

What Hong Kong has managed — and what makes it genuinely different from every other city competing for this title — is that it holds all these registers simultaneously, and without hierarchy. The Michelin inspector and the construction worker are both eating seriously here. The city doesn’t have a food scene. It has a food culture. The difference is everything. A food scene is something you visit. A food culture is something you fall into and can't quite climb out of.

We finally explored the beast that is Hong Kong’s food scene. These are some of the places we loved.

WHAT WE LOVED

Spring Moon, The Peninsula Hong Kong

Stewed lobster at Spring Moon

Spring Moon has been open since 1986 and still holds a Michelin star. The room is modelled on a 1920s Shanghai dining hall: teak floors, stained-glass windows, the works. Chef Lam Yuk Ming's kitchen is the one widely credited with inventing XO chilli sauce. The tea-smoked crispy chicken and stewed lobster with fish maw are the reason to come. Order the Baijiu Beer. You won't regret it.

Bar Leone, Central

The seasonal Hattori Hanzo at Bar Leone

In 2025, Bar Leone was named the World's Best Bar. Lorenzo Antinori spent years at some of the best cocktail bars in the world and then opened a bar in the city that is essentially a love letter to Roman neighbourhood bars. The mood inside is all vintage tiles, football posters and wooden café tables. The Filthy Martini — Ketel One, smoked olive brine — is possibly the best martini we've had in Hong Kong. Meanwhile, the seasonal Hattori Hanzo — Japanese strawberry, almond, Don Julio Blanco, lime, dill aquavit, Campari — is good if you want something lighter. Get the mortadella sandwich. Get the smoked olives. And don’t leave without trying their take on the classic negroni. Arrive at 5pm or queue. If you're in the mood for something different, his other bar, Montana, is a few minutes away.

Akira Back, The Henderson

The building alone is worth the trip. The Henderson was designed around the Bauhinia, Hong Kong's city flower. The result is a curved, line-free tower. Akira Back, who grew up in Seoul, now has over 20 restaurants globally. His food is Japanese-Korean-American, which is a lot of things at once, but it doesn't eat that way. The AB Tuna Pizza — thin crust, fresh tuna sashimi, ponzu aioli, white truffle oil — lives up to what people say about it. The Toro Tartare comes with caviar and nine condiments, a nod to the Korean royal dish Gujeolpan.