Fancy a kebab in a former prison? In Asia’s frantic metropolis, where Hong Kong’s Central Police Station once stood, the restoration known as the Tai Kwun Centre for Heritage and Arts now beckons with 16 colonial-era buildings revitalized by Pritzker Prize-winning architects Herzog & de Meuron. The old compound with two bustling courtyards now has performance venues in place of its original jail cells and police quarters. The main magistracy has been transformed into a series of lavish spaces in which to meet and imbibe, including a private club, botanical bar and sumptuous Indian restaurant, Prince and the Peacock. One of the city’s hottest reservations, it plays up the opulence of India’s royal courts, complete with soft lighting, hushed carpeting and fine furniture that will transport you to a Raj-era palace. It is where the well-heeled come to dig into slow-cooked lamb, a.k.a. the Nalli Ghosht Biryani.
And perhaps to exorcise their colonial ghosts – the food of one faded British outpost being enjoyed in a territory that was once also possessed by the Brits. Indeed, the history of Indian cuisine in Hong Kong is a long one, dating back to the mid-19th century, when the British occupied the territory. Indian soldiers and traders were among the earliest migrants, bringing with them their rich culinary traditions, while giving locals a taste for South Asian spices. Prince and the Peacock is just one of the captivating new restaurants that reminds visitors what a cosmopolitan hive Hong Kong remains, even with all the seismic changes since the “handover” in 1997, and in particular, over the last decade of pro-democracy protests, a place where nostalgia seems to be on the menu in a medley of ways, and where glamour still lives.
The richly coloured, glamorous interior of Grand Majestic Sichuan
For instance, another buzzy new restaurant, Grand Majestic Sichuan, situated deep amid the city’s famous skyscrapers, is a nod itself to the 1970s-era Majestic Restaurant & Nightclub, a hot spot back in the day. Red on red: lamps, velvet banquettes, ceilings, all in vibrating tones of raspberry, tangelo orange and musk pink, unfolding in a series of rooms that look like they came out of a high-end disco from another time – silk and fringe and Gucci wallpaper. Grand Majestic boasts a menu that’s hardly tepid either. Over dishes such as Chongqing-style “firecracker chicken” served on a bed of chilies, there is another thing being consumed: Hong Kong’s own layered past.
Firecracker Chicken at Grand Majestic Sichuan. Photo: Courtesy of the Grand Majestic Sichuan
To visit the city these days is to land in a flip book of its own history, and a vibrant hodgepodge of cultures … and the restaurant scene reflects that. Take the Michelin-starred restaurant VEA that is almost all counter seating. Here Vicky Cheng, a chef who was born in Hong Kong, but grew up in Toronto, puts his classically trained French spin on Chinese cuisine: the delicacy that is roasted sea cucumber with hairy crab and 20-year old Shaoxing wine, for instance. Improbably glorious. Or the similarly Michelin-acclaimed restaurant Mora, which takes the humble soybean – a pillar of Asian cuisine – and chic-ifies it with French-honed technique. Textures, shapes, oh wow. “Chrysanthemum Tofu?” Tofu fabulous!
For a snackier dinner, and Italian aperitivo vibes, do not miss Bar Leone. Relaxed, playful, but undeniably debonair, it’s the brainchild of globe-trotting cocktail legend Lorenzo Antinori. New York doing Rome doing Hong Kong: its rabbit-hole appeal. And the one place we got to where – if you squint – it still felt like the heady expat times of colonial Hong Kong in the early 1990s.