Hong Kong's kitchenless concepts: The city's creative restaurants with no permanent home

Nascent startup BiteUnite is harnessing the power of internet to hook up food lovers with their community of talented local chefs. Call it the Etsy of home-cooked meals, if you like – with just a few clicks, you can get family dinners, quick bites, baked goodies and more delivered to your doorstep within the hour. It may all sound unfamiliar at first but it’s a dining paradigm that makes sense, combining modern convenience with the cultivation of local talent. Check out the BiteUnite website to browse their diverse menu and read more about their chefs. biteunite.com.

Founded in 2013 by three friends craving unique experiences while on their travels, Bonappetour is a new kid on the block and works by linking tourists with a selection of chefs who host diners in their own home. Working like Airbnb, patrons can select their preferred experience online according to price and peer reviews. Pay online and you’re all set. Recently launched in Hong Kong, Bonappetour isn’t the first service of its kind on our shores, but it emphasises the quality and selection process of its chef hosts and seeks to enrich travellers’ culinary experiences. Whether you’re passing through town or call the 852 home, who’s not down for good food? bonappetour.com.

What started as a one-off event in January this year provided Noma alumni James Sharman with a revolutionary idea. Working with Airbnb, the nomadic chef travels around the world with four counterparts to create unique menus using ingredients specific to the host city. What does this mean for Hong Kong? Well, Sharman has vowed to come back to Hong Kong every month and is showcasing the menus he’s created in the other cities he has visited. Having popped-up in New York, San Francisco and Taipei, excited eaters should subscribe to the website or follow these guys on Facebook to keep tabs on them. onestarhouseparty.com.

This Lithuanian company is well established in 30 countries around the world and has been dubbed the Airbnb of dining. The concept is simple enough: budding chefs get to cook, diners get to eat – it all works out. With 38 participating chefs on the website, the service has exploded in popularity over the last six months. Plateculture is about providing a platform for rising culinary talents to stretch their wings and dish up an original adventure. Currently, the most popular host in Hong Kong is chef Teo-man Alemdar who provides authentic Turkish cuisine in a city where authentic Middle Eastern cuisine is still hard to find. Find him and many more gastronomical experiences online. plateculture.com.

Corporate lawyer by day and gourmet chef by night. What started as throwing amazing dinner parties for pals turned Mina Park into one of the driving forces of the independent culinary movement in our fair city. Encouraged by her friends to try her recipes at the first PMQ Night Market, the insane popularity of her innovative Asian recipes led to a series of monthly pop-ups and collaborations with Serge et le Phoque, The Pawn and Ping Pong. She doesn’t sleep much nowadays, since she’s maintaining her day job, but further monthly pop-ups and collabs are coming, and a permanent project is on possibly on the horizon. Keep up to date with Sook on Facebook to find out when you can tuck into this supergirl’s next menu. fb.com/sookkitchen.

This concept is so new it doesn’t even have a dedicated website yet. But it’s grown in popularity so fast that they’ve had to add an additional night for their next event already. Showing a different movie each month, guests are served a multi-course meal that matches the mood of certain scenes throughout the film. Taste the first kiss between the star-crossed lovers in Romeo and Juliet, for instance, where baked oysters in gorgonzola sauce was served, which takes the palate on a textural and intense experience of the moment. The next screening is Moonrise Kingdom on June 21 and 22 – and tickets are selling fast. uoreprivatechef.com.