Michelin Hong Kong

From cutting-edge ‘extreme Chinese’ to traditional dim sum restaurants – it takes something special even in Hong Kong to win the famous Michelin nod.

The 'Michelin Guide' to Hong Kong not only points you towards lavish Chinese restaurants but exquisite tastes found in some simple neighbourhood eateries

22 April, 2017

The chef is longhaired, tattooed and could be mistaken for an ageing rock star. Watch Alvin Leung at work in the open kitchen at Bo Innovation, however, and he’s more like a mad scientist in a laboratory where liquid nitrogen floats and strange things are created. Snow is magicked from ginger and lime, and almond desserts release sandalwood smoke recalling Chinese temple incense. Leung’s reinterpretation of the famous soup-filled xiao long bao dumpling is a masterpiece of molecular gastronomy that looks like a grape, but still provides the same explosion of flavoursome broth.

Alvin Leung has bamboozled and shocked all Hong Kong with what he calls his ‘X-treme Chinese cuisine’. When the acoustic engineer launched his own restaurant in 2005 he’d never undertaken a cooking class – yet, in 2009, the inaugural Michelin guide to Hong Kong and Macau award him two Michelin stars for his provocative food. He now has three, and remains one of only two self-taught chefs in the world ever awarded three Michelin stars – the other is Heston Blumenthal.

As you eat at Bo Innovation (60 Johnston Road, Wan Chai), it’s obvious that Leung is a chef impatient with China’s revered cuisines, keen to make changes and use novel ingredients from around Asia and Europe. But while the unorthodox chef sets Hong Kong tongues wagging, the eccentric endorsements of the Michelin guide, which is now in its ninth edition, also have the city’s conservative diners in a spin. Critics holler that the guide is biased towards formal, European and especially French restaurants, and complain that Michelin reviewers don’t understand Cantonese and Chinese cuisines. But in fact, the majority of the restaurants listed in the guide serve Chinese cuisine, and many picks are surprisingly modest traditional eateries.

Of course, this is controversial too, because naysayers sniff at what they consider down-market choices. In the Michelin guide’s first edition, noodle shop Olala (1 Electric Street, Wan Chai) was ‘an inspector’s favourite for good value’ for its classic beef noodles, eaten with plastic chopsticks at rickety tables. Sang Kee (107-115 Hennessy Road, Wan Chai) is lauded in the latest edition for its simple fish congee flavoured with dried shrimp, pork bone and tangerine peel. And another noodle joint, Ho To Tai (67 Fau Tsoi Street, Yuen Long) gets a bib gourmand nod, awarded for ‘exceptional good food at moderate prices’. At around HK$16 for lunch, it’s one of the world’s cheapest Michelin-recommended meals.

It vies for that honour with Tim Ho Wan (18 Hoi Ting Road, Tai Kwok Tsui). Few places better demonstrate the varied Michelin dining experience in Hong Kong. Patrons queue on the pavement, cram elbow-to-elbow at tiny tables and aren’t encouraged to linger. There’s no bottled water, let alone wine, and soft drinks are served in cans. It’s the food of chef Mak Pui Gor that counts, however. The menu barely strays from the standard dim sum you’ll find anywhere in the city, but there’s no doubting it’s a cut above: beautifully steamed prawn dumplings, turnip cakes, glorious spring rolls.

Tim Ho Wan’s owner likes to portray himself as a simple local chef made good, but in fact Mak Pui Gor was once the dim-sum chef at lauded Four Seasons restaurant Lung King Heen (8 Finance Street, Central). In 2009 it became the first Chinese restaurant anywhere to bag three Michelin stars, which it still has. Many other hotel restaurants are well deserving of their Michelin accolades, such as the two-star Yan Toh Heen (InterContinental, 18 Salisbury Road, Tsim Sha Tsui), whose top Cantonese cuisine tempts with the likes of scallops with minced shrimp and fresh pear, braised abalone rolls, and frog legs with bamboo shoots and black pepper.

In a culture where food is more important than service or décor, you can also expect a certain unpredictability in your Michelin experience in Hong Kong beyond what’s on your plate. Tim’s Kitchen (84-90 Bonham Street, Sheung Wan) started with two Michelin stars (it has since faded to just a mention) for chef Lai Yau Tim’s traditional Cantonese comfort food: deep fried tofu, crispy-skin chicken, pork belly. Yet the décor – which runs to purple chairs and glittery gold tablecloths – causes snobs to wince. The restaurant doesn’t have a liquor license (you can bring your own wine) and the Service is slapdash and muddled. ‘Sweet, endearing service soon wins you around,’ comments the Michelin guide somewhat diplomatically.

Of course, for the ordinary diner, this could well be the very reason to follow the Michelin guide to Hong Kong. For those who’d rather not deal with condescending sommeliers, French menus and an uptight dining environment, it’s good to know that top food can be enjoyed without fuss. You could, for example, head to Fook Lam Moon (35-45 Johnston Road, Wanchai) and enjoy Michelin food without even opening a menu: you just have to pick food off the dim-sum trolleys as they wobble past your table. Only price and quality mark this place out from a thousand other dim-sum joints. Enjoy sautéed fresh lobster and baked stuffed crab as you indulge in some Hong Kong celebrity-spotting.

Hong Kong has always been a city with impeccable culinary credentials, but has it always been a city where top dining is fresh and fun? Probably not. Only recently has it begun emerging from the straightjacket of the classical Chinese kitchen repertoire to offer something different and daring. If the Michelin guide is criticised by some, what it has done is help the city acknowledge culinary inventiveness, and demonstrate that you can enjoy the best meals in the most unexpected places.

Michelin Hong Kong

From cutting-edge ‘extreme Chinese’ to traditional dim sum restaurants – it takes something special even in Hong Kong to win the famous Michelin nod.

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