Restaurants & Cafés

The team behind burger bar favourite Beef & Liberty quietly opened a new venture in late 2019, but this time focusing more on cheese than beef and subbing out soft buns for bready crusts. The new pizzeria, which came as the first in what turned out to be a spate of recent cheesy openings to bless our city, is located on the leafy 4th level of Pacific Place and proves a worthy addition to Hong Kong’s growing list of quality pizzarias.  The restaurant takes its name from an old type of awned wheat that has been used for centuries in baking, not least by the Romans who utilised it to delicious effect in a dense and nutritious type of ancient bread. The pizza chefs at Emmer today mix the grain with more commonly found flours for a crust that is satisfyingly substantial and bouncy, bearing a unique flavour that immediately sets it apart from that of your average greasy pizza joint. Yes, the guys here certainly know what they’re doing, and they make no bones about showing off all that they do with an open kitchen that allows unobstructed views of the rolling process and the sleek chrome pizza oven that dominates the space behind the counter. To compliment the crust, Emmer keeps it simple by offering just six variations of toppings from Margherita ($98) to Marinara ($118). These are all exclusively rolled to 11 inches in order to make for quite the filling bite, especially when ordered on top of one of the starters, which include cultured nibbles like stracciatella and cold cuts p

A couple of floors above bustling Jaffe Road, Kura recently opened its doors as a Japanese restaurant with a mission to offer top-quality traditional Japanese cuisine in an authentic, modern setting. In a city where Japanese restaurants are – thankfully – these days ten-a-penny, Kura manages to stand out because, although slightly missing the mark in a couple of important areas, it serves up an impressive array of Japanese favourites that do full and delicious justice to the ways of washoku. The restaurant is relatively spacious, with various nooks and crannies delineated by pillars, dainty-wooden-beamed dividers and thin walls, much like in restaurants on the back streets of, say, Tokyo or Kyoto. There’s also a hulking counter that stands as the focal point of the restaurant and at which nine lucky patrons can sit and look on as the sushi chefs slice and press away. Despite these features however, it has to be said that the ambience of the place falls short of offering that truly authentic Japanese experience. Whether it be the choice of furniture, which could be taken more for Ikea than Ikebukuro, or the slight messiness – it is extremely hygienic by the looks of things – behind the sushi counter that just wouldn’t fly in your average Osaka sushiya, it’s hard to forget that you’re actually in Hong Kong. Now onto the food, which leaves very little to complain about. Kura’s rather extensive menu offers 13 lunch sets comprising of favourites from sushi to tempura, priced aro

The latest offering from the group behind Ecriture and Bibo partially fills the enviable space previously occupied by Lily & Bloom as a restaurant offering “sustainable cuisine inspired by the island of Bali”. Far from the first Indonesian restaurant to grace our city, Poem carves out its niche by offering a mid-high-end island experience, which is generally well done but somehow lacks that X factor to make it really stand out in this bustling part of town. To start on a positive note, the interior is beautifully done, with a wall of lush vegetation gently leading the eyes towards a maelstrom of exotic shapes etched within the fixtures and furniture – done in wood, bamboo, rattan and stone. The venue clearly focuses on escapism, and it works as these elements bring the rainforest to the city in a tropical-cum-urban-chic environment that primes diners for the Poem experience before they so much as sit down. The menu is extensive with a good selection of dishes for different budgets and palletes. This is a good thing as it affords diners the freedom to mix it up, with offerings like the Home-Style Fried Rice ($118), the Skipjack with Egg Noodles ($128) and Vegetable curry providing relatively inexpensive ways for diners to fill their stomachs here. The Soft shell crab ($98) is as good a place as any to start, with a promising accompaniment of smoked eggplant caviar, coconut sambal, balado sambal and sea asparagus. This dish isn’t bad, with a nice earthy flavor, but it is let

The opening of Ruam on Wan Chai’s trendy Ship Street was a relatively low-key affair when compared to that of Black Sheep’s buzzy new venture, Associazione Chianti, a few weeks later and a few doors down. The latter was common of restaurants that have recently come to populate what has to be given credit as one of the most interesting epicurean alcoves in our city right now, and so the prospect of visiting one of the street’s quieter neighbours was all-the-more alluring. While certainly not proving a disappointing experience overall, the food at this self-described vibrant-casual Thai garden bar and eatery needs more attention to do the atmospheric space justice. The name of the restaurant means “to gather” in Thai, and it’s easy to discern that this was at the forefront of the minds that designed the space. Upon trundling up a narrow staircase, visitors emerge in an outdoor, deck-style space that dominates the restaurant and is replete with wooden counter-height tables seating around four – some of which offer charming views of the street below – and a couple of sprawling round tables in the centre to accommodate larger groups. Add to this atmospheric lighting, accentuated by fairy lights festooned between the wooden beams overhead, and you have a space that is inviting and conducive to conversation. The Drinking Snacks section of the menu is a good place to begin food-wise, as it’s where you’ll find a selection of starter-sized dishes including but not limited to skewers,