Where to Eat in Hong Kong Now

If you haven’t been to Hong Kong in a while, I can’t blame you — and I live here. Travel warnings were raised in 2019 during citywide protests, and before anyone could catch their breath, faces were covered, flights were canceled, and the once-24-hour city was shut down. That moment of forced introspection, when identities were rocked to the very core, was beyond difficult. But like hot iron from a forge, the city — my city — has emerged renewed, and there’s no better place to see that than in our food and drink scene.

“I had a bar, and with the pandemic curfews, we weren’t doing much business,” recalls Vicky Cheng, the chef behind the acclaimed “Chinese x French” fine-dining spot Vea and the haute Chinese restaurant Wing. “In the bar space, we started making supper for friends, like clay pot rice — things we wanted to eat,” he says of Wing’s beginnings. “Believe it or not, we originally wanted to create a casual restaurant.” Today, Wing epitomizes contemporary Chinese fine dining, ranking No. 11 on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list in 2025. Many of its dishes are now considered iconic: jiggly sea cucumber in a thin spring roll wrapper with scallion sauce, or housemade century eggs with crystal clear whites, served with a lacy drizzle of tingly mala chile sauce. The menu evokes the food Hong Kongers grew up with, amplified and refined.

The desire to dig deep into our personal and collective identities percolated citywide. Suddenly freed from the expectations of travelers and business diners, chefs began cooking, first and foremost, for themselves and their community. 

This shift in perspective was seismic. For a long time, Hong Kongers have looked abroad, especially to the West and Japan, for the latest trends. But in recent years, as Vicky Lau, chef of the two-Michelin-starred, French-meets-Chinese Tate Dining Room, observes, “people began to be more open-minded about different kinds of cuisine closer to home.” This newfound curiosity has led chefs like Lau to explore the vast larder of mainland China.

In practical terms, purchasing ingredients from the mainland was easier than flying them in from other countries (the special administrative region is geographically attached to China), especially given China’s advanced logistics network. But new openness to sourcing from China wasn’t just about supply chain adjustments; it was also a philosophical shift. Hong Kongers had long been skeptical of anything made in China, whose reputation was marred by stories of “fake food.” These days, China has come a long way in terms of ingredient quality and traceability, and as the definition of luxury shifts from imported foie gras toward hyperseasonal, regional, and expertly sourced foods, chefs and diners are embracing the bounty in our backyard.

Lau’s exploration of regional Chinese ingredients led to her newest opening, the Yunnan-inspired bistro Jija, which means “chirping birds” or, in Cantonese slang, “excited chatter.” She describes it as a “Chinese kind of bistro” built on the cuisine of southwestern China: Prized seasonal mushroom varieties burst with umami in a housemade mushroom and pork sausage; Chinese artichokes, rarely seen outside Yunnan, are pickled with black cardamom, Szechuan pepper, and star anise. Even the simplest side of stir-fried vegetables provides a window into the region: In spring, for example, long, minty, crunchy wild rice shoots might be tossed in a searing-hot wok with yancaigao, a salty-sour fermented vegetable paste reminiscent of fish sauce. Though Yunnan is just 800 miles away from Hong Kong (approximately the distance between New York City and Chicago), for Lau it once felt like another world. Her research, travels, and direct conversations with growers have unearthed Yunnan’s nuanced richness and brought it within arm’s reach. 

“I think there’s such beauty in that cuisine; it looks very casual, but it’s got lots of flavor,” she says. “It’s very ingredient-driven and very accessible.” Her favorite finds include ganbajun, the prized wild coral fungus indigenous to the region, as well as more familiar fungi like morels and pencil-shaped black termite mushrooms.

Like Lau, chef Tony Mok of Path restaurant draws inspiration from close to home. Growing up in a wai chuen, one of the centuries-old walled villages of Hong Kong’s New Territories, with a father who trained in a traditional Cantonese kitchen, his inspirations are profoundly personal and unabashedly homegrown. Mok says he designed his intimate eight-seat restaurant, with counter seating around an open kitchen, “so that customers can talk to me directly and ask me questions anytime,” because the food is ultimately his story. “The inspiration comes from things I ate in the village when I was little as well as dishes that are common in Hong Kong food culture. But I don’t want to just replicate it. I want to express these traditional flavors in a new way.” 

His take on dan dan noodles has a luxurious pile of Hong Kong’s native flower crab instead of the usual pork, and he caresses each serving of chalky white al dente noodles by hand to assess their starchiness, a technique learned from making Korean mul naengmyeon (cold noodles). The noodles sit atop a silky roasted-cashew sauce and are finished in chile oil and a shower of crispy, garlicky breadcrumbs. He serves the dish cold, a refreshing spin tailored to Hong Kong’s heat. 

The embrace of local ingredients and traditions extends beyond fine dining and can be found at every price point throughout the city. “In Hong Kong, a lot of the people who started these traditions are still in business, so younger folk have the opportunity to approach them and, with the right amount of sincerity, courage, and curiosity, really internalize the ways of doing business and the techniques involved,” says Hong Kong–raised 2021 F&W Best New Chef Lucas Sin who is working on a book inspired by the city’s cha chaan tengs (dinerlike all-day eateries). Tai On Coffee & Tea Shop, he says, “was one of the first” revived cha chaan tengs. It now serves flat whites alongside locally inspired mashups like creamed corn on French toast, where an intense corn velouté and grilled corn on the cob meet thick-cut, fluffy white bread, fried to golden perfection. “It’s always heartening to see new people stepping in with the goal of continuing a business and celebrating what people have been doing for a long, long time,” Sin says. 

Old ways are getting new life everywhere: Rowdy hot pot den Big JJ shakes things up by re-creating the energy of an old-school dai pai dong, or street stall, while offering high-quality (and sometimes obscure) cuts of beef, sliced expertly for cooking at the table, as well as a thoughtful wine selection. At the “Cantonese cocktail salon” Kinsman, drinks draw from traditional Chinese and locally made liquors — the Kaya Toast blends jiuniang, a sweet fermented rice wine, with clarified brioche vodka made using bread from the celebrated Bakehouse bakery. 

As someone who grew up in Hong Kong in the 1990s, people often ask me whether much has changed since the “handover” in 1997, when Hong Kong ceased to be a British colony. When it comes to food, I’d say the changes have only just begun.

Where to eat and drink in Hong Kong