Restaurants & Cafés

French home-cooking gets the star treatment at PMQ’s latest dining destination

Hong Kong has a complicated relationship with tacos. They’re often soggy and insipid or tiny and overpriced. Taqueria Super Macho, however, hopes to hit the sweet spot between high- and lowbrow, serving tacos inspired by Mexico’s coastal cuisine in a lively but casual atmosphere. ‘Lively but casual’ might be an understatement, though. Every time the door opens, the floor and bar staff shout ‘¡Bienvenidos!’ And, frequently, the corrido music pumping through the speakers is broken by the unmistakable saxophone riff of Tequila Song by The Champs and the room erupts in a chorus of ‘¡tequila!’ The margarita pitchers are novelty-sized sharing glasses. Sombreros appear on strangers’ heads. It is, in short, a fiesta. And the drinks keep partygoers well-lubricated. The margaritas – classic, passion fruit or mango, on the rocks or frozen ($88) – are potent and delicious. Five house cocktails, including a riff on the Michelada called Viva México ($88), provide an alternative to margaritas and run-of-the-mill Mexican lagers like Pacífico, Dos Equis, Corona and Modelo Negra ($58 each, or $298 for a bucket of six).  While the vibe may be more Señor Frog’s than Frontera Grill, when it comes to food expect more than you would get from your standard cantina. Black Sheep Restaurants founder Christopher Mark and development chef Billy Otis spent months scouring the Mexican coast, sampling taco after taco in search of culinary inspiration. They returned to Hong Kong with recipes that seem sim

Inside many of us there exists a burning desire to connect with our roots. Most people will never fulfil that desire. Chef Que Vinh Dang, however, is not most people. Born in Vietnam and raised in New York, where he learned classical French cooking and cut his teeth under culinary icons Geoffrey Zakarian and Rocco DiSpirito, the chef has returned to his roots with his latest restaurant, Nhau. Dang, for the uninitiated, was behind two popular but now defunct Hong Kong restaurants showcasing French techniques and contemporary American cooking: TBLS and Quest by Que. After closing Quest, the chef took a two-and-a-half-year hiatus from the dining scene before opening Nhau in 2019. Rather than reverting to the broad spectrum of Western flavours again, the chef looked to the country of his birth for a fresh angle. If that wasn’t obvious in the name – Nhau translates to ‘together’, as in to eat and drink together – it should become clear as soon as you step foot in the dining room. From the rattan chairs and hand-painted ceramic tiles to the pastel yellow walls, a colour favoured by French colonialists, the design screams ‘Southeast Asia’. The beautiful aesthetics, as well as the tucked-away location just off Upper Lascar Row, are pure bait for well-heeled socialites. Never mind the décor and crowds, though. The food transcends them all. Nhau packs a lot of punch into a one-page menu. Sour, spicy, salty, funky, fresh – every dish captures that distinct blend of disparate flavours

There was nothing quiet about the opening of Silencio. One of the city’s most talked about new tables generated tons of hype this spring. Perhaps with good reason. The restaurant, billed as a sort of contemporary izakaya and jazz bar rolled into one, is part of the Le Comptoir group. And that group recently got the city’s ears perked up when one of its projects, Ecriture, earned two Michelin stars in an unusually short amount of time. As in, less than a year after opening. But one restaurant can only ride the coattails of another so far. Though backed by a red-hot restaurant group, Silencio too often falls flat when it has to speak for itself. Silencio occupies what used to be the second floor of Lily & Bloom in LKF Tower. Oddball artwork by Japanese artist Tomoo Gokita decorates the walls, including a provocative portrait of two topless gaijin in the entryway. Gokita’s greyscale aesthetic works like a foil to the restaurant’s gold accents — gold fabrics, gold chopsticks, black paint oozing down gold walls, all of which work together to set a swank tone. In the back of the dining space stands a band that belts out smooth jazz. If you’re into the music, get a seat at the bar, where you can watch the band without having to crane your neck or lean your body across the table.  While it's certainly chic, the setting might be a bit too polished for its own good, the very idea of an izakaya spit-shined to a treacly sheen. But the design isn’t what you’re after anyway. You're here