The best hotpot restaurants in Hong Kong

Tucked away on the first floor of Golden Glory Mansion in Tsim Sha Tsui, Tasty Hotpot Palace is not the easiest place to find. But once you're there, you'll feel as though you've stepped inside a traditional Chinese palace. Their fish maw chicken broth is one of the best in town, but it's the plating here that's truly impressive with their meats and seafood served in a decorative way that definitely calls for the camera to eat first. Tasty Hotpot Palace always has a ton of special deals on offer too, which you can keep an eye out for on their Facebook page.

This spot in Tsim Sha Tsui offers affordable all you can eat Taiwanese-style hotpot courses, that last either 60 or 90 minutes during lunch time; and 120 minutes during dinner. Here, you can dunk your favourite ingredients into various styles of broths, such as ginseng chicken soup, spicy mala, pork with pickled cabbage, and plenty more. When it comes to the hotpot add-ins, Beef Bang provides a wide variety of high quality beef, Taiwanese dishes, as well as beverages and desserts to enjoy after your meal. 

This 6,200sq ft restaurant in TST makes hotpot cool. The venue sports interiors that are reminiscent of a contemporary fish market and look, well, really hip. And the same goes for the pots, which include soup bases enriched with premium ingredients. One must-try is the signature The Drunken Pot. This features five different soup bases in one copper pot. It's perfect for dipping slices of marbled beef or the restaurant's delicious homemade dumplings and meatballs. If you're not on the Kowloon side, check out the Causeway Bay branch, or better yet, order their hotpot delivery and get dunkin' in the comforts of your own home.

This Kowloon City joint has been open for over 60 years, and it's been an hotpot institution ever since. Fong Wing Kei is best known for their satay broth which is packed full of flavour, which stays rich and nutty throughout your meal. While you can order pretty much anything you want to enjoy their satay hotpot, a must-order item is definitely instant noodles, as they soak up all the rich broth after cooking.

With over 500 locations worldwide, Liu's Chong Qing Hot Pot is a famous chain from Chongqing that specialises in Sichuan-style hotpot. While they have a small selection of hotpot broths to choose from, Liu's is best known for their signature mala spicy soup that's made with beef tallow and plenty of chillis. Aside from the usual hot pot add-ins like sliced meats, vegetables, or fishball varieties; this hotpot spot also offers delicacies like tripe, pig hearts, pig blood and intestines.

Venture out to Sham Shui Po for Bino N’ Booze’s refreshing take on hotpot. Just like its namesake suggests, the restaurant creates unique soup bases by pairing traditional ingredients with alcohol. For wine lovers, check out their signature red wine oxtail and tomato soup, a harmonious blend between a beef broth and a classic borscht which uses fresh carrots and tomatoes, while sake lovers can go for the BnB seafood soup, a flavourful broth combining Japanese kelp, bonito flakes, flower crab, sea shrimp, abalone, mussels, scallops, and Japanese Nanshan sake to tie the soup base's umami flavour together with the sweetness of the seafood.

Hailing all the way from Singapore, the beloved hotpot chain Beauty in the Pot has finally opened its doors in Hong Kong, becoming a smashing success overnight. The restaurant, delightfully decked out in shades of pastel pink, elegantly combines flavours and ingredients from various parts of East Asia, creating a harmonious and ingenious blend of cultures that captures the essence of communal dining manifested through the hotpot experience. So, if you’re ever torn between satiating your craving for hotpot and fulfilling your inner princess’ pretty pink fantasies, now you have just the place to run to for both a delicious meal and snapping that Insta-worthy money shot.

This Mong Kok restaurant is a favourite among locals. The interior decoration is a mashup of a wet market, seafood market, and meat stall. That reflects perfectly how fresh all the ingredients are as the chef personally handpicks all the seafood and meat daily. There are more than 10 soup bases to pick from but the chicken and fish maw soup, and peppered pig’s stomach and chicken soup are among the best. We suggest you start and savour a bowl of soul-warming soup before chucking in all your ingredients.

Spanning a whopping 9,000sq ft across two floors in the heart of Causeway Bay, Lau Haa (which literally translates to downstairs) Hotpot Restaurant is a retro-themed restaurant that will take you back to the old Hong Kong. With over 20 types of soup bases to choose from, the menu at Lau Haa keeps to its authenticity with a range of local, Hong Kong-style food such as handmade plum and pork meatballs, fresh shrimp paste, Huadiao braised chicken and much more.

Apart from the food, what makes this hotpot restaurant the most unique is its interior. Completely decked out in full vintage gear such as neon lights, old tuck shop-style furnishings, retro floor and tiling, dai pai dong tables and chairs, as well as classic Chinese tableware, you'll feel like you've stepped into a time machine back to the 70s!

This Taiwanese hotpot restaurant is probably best known for its numbing spicy soup broth that takes seven days to ferment. Plating is also a huge deal here at Quan Alley. Ingredients are intricately served on ice atop beautiful porcelain crockery and antique-like bowls, with some plated to look akin to floral art. Try ordering the chicken cartilage, which is made to look like nougat or the Taiwanese-style fish paste served like a popsicle stick.

With locations in Kowloon City and Tsim Sha Tsui, Woo Cow Hotpot is well known for its wide variety of soup bases. Try popular broth options such as the signature cow offal broth and Hokkaido milk broth with fish maw. The restaurant also offers delivery services if you're looking for a more intimate hotpot gathering at home.

Founded in Beijing in 1903, Dong Lai Shun is best known for using thinly sliced mutton from Mongolia in its hotpots. Pro tip: To keep the meat juicy and tender, skim a thin slice across the top of the bubbling hot pot for a few seconds, then dip it in their toothsome secret sauce.

Yi Hung Yuen is hard to miss when you're walking down Wyndham Street. With its bright red facade that will catch the eye of any passersby, Yi Hung Yuen is a Chinese brothel-themed hotpot restaurant that celebrates the nostalgia and novelty of Ancient China, with its name paying tribute to the classic Chinese Novel Dream of the Red Chamber. On the menu, or as they've delightfully named it a 'prostitution contract', you'll find a range of creative broths such as the typhoon shelter crab pot and the cheesy lobster pot (which you can enjoy before adding in the broth), a wide array of ingredients to satisfy all your dunking needs, along with unique side dishes like the eight spices tofu, seaweed squid cakes, and a selection of sashimi. The whole restaurant is also decked out in elements that your camera will love, making it the perfect place to gather with friends for a well-deserved feast.

This restaurant is inspired by 1950s Hong Kong and focuses mainly on hotpots with health and beauty benefits in the soup base. Here, you can experience a taste of old Hong Kong while you enjoy dipping in a variety of popular hotpot ingredients including an all-beef Hong Kong Platter, Japanese pearl oysters, trio dumplings, house trio cuttlefish balls, and cuttlefish paste stuffed Chinese doughnut in their signature soups such as the Hokkaido milk with rose, spicy Sichuan, Thai-style seafood tom yum, house satay, and sake seafood.

This popular Taiwanese import is known for its bubbling broths made from high-quality ingredients, from the signature hot and spicy soup to the nourishing collagen chicken soup. The list of to-cook ingredients is extensive too and covers everything from hand-sliced beef to dumplings and vegetable platters. Be sure to order a Taiwanese craft beer to go with your meal.

Enjoy retro vibes at this hotpot restaurant. Decked out in furnishings inspired by ’60s and ’70s Hong Kong, Happy Together is a fun and photogenic setting to enjoy a steaming hot meal. The restaurant offers vats of homespun broth, which you can use to cook everything from hand-wrapped dumplings to Japanese beef. You’ll also find cool and creative dishes, such as the stuffed fried dough sticks and old-school shrimp toast.

Beef is the name of the game at 616 Hotpot. The vintage interiors and decor certainly add to the fun, but be sure you're prepared for a real feast as the restaurant offers over 20 different cuts of beef for you to choose from. The restaurant also gets its beef freshly delivered every day, so you're bound to enjoy quality meats whenever you visit.

One of the hippest hotpot joints in town, Lets Pot not only boasts their own DJ to keep the beats going, but also offers a range of Chinese-style cocktails to accompany your hotpot experience, including the winter melon red jujube Martini, which combines the two ingredients with candied dates, egg white, and a healthy dose of vodka for a refreshing beverage while you feast. On the hotpot side, the restaurant offers five special health-oriented soup bases such as pepper, radish, and beef tendon soup; coconut, fish maw, whelk, and chicken soup; fungus, bitter melon, and pork rib soup, sea snail in spicy wine soup; and Chinese style sauerkraut basa fish soup.

If you’re big on spicy food, you definitely have to try Wulao’s signature spicy pot. Chefs at the restaurant create this fiery soup base by combining a myriad of Chinese herbs and spices with onions, spring onions, garlic, chicken bones, and pork bones to create a rich and flavourful broth that’s uniquely Wulao. Each soup base the restaurant serves also includes an unlimited supply of tofu and duck blood, both popular Taiwanese delicacies that you can enjoy with the rest of your meal. Most of their hotpot ingredients are also sourced directly from Taiwan.

One of the best kept hotpot secrets by local foodies is Big JJ, an understated restaurant located near Lan Kwai Fong. While the place is humbly decorated and relatively small in scale, you’ll regularly find long queues of hungry patrons outside anticipating a taste of the restaurant’s quality soups and ingredients. Before you actually start cooking your food, restaurant staff will set aside a bowl of soup for you to taste the true flavours of their concoction without contaminating it with additional meat or vegetables. A standout for us is the coconut Silkie chicken soup, which includes a whole chicken for you to feast on.

Originally named Xiao Yu Hotpot Restaurant, the beloved Chongqing hotpot chain has now been renamed to Uncle Fong Chongqing Hotpot Restaurant, with nine branches across Hong Kong. One of their latest locations to open is in Central, where the interior takes on a modern, Bauhaus aesthetic matched with dimming lights during dinner for a more relaxed and comfortable ambience. Their signature dish is the numbing spicy Jiugongge hotpot: a large pot segregated into a grid of nine squares with a fiery soup base, perfect for Central branch exclusives such as the hand-beaten shrimp balls with bamboo fungus, hand-beaten squid balls with black truffle, and fresh duck blood.

Located on Hillwood Road in Tsim Sha Tsui, JKJ Pot stands out with its unique 80s and 90s-inspired decor. The walls of the restaurants are covered in vintage posters, artwork, and murals, complemented by round wooden tables and Hong Kong’s signature foldable chairs. While their signature chicken pot is still one of the highlights, the restaurant recently launched a new coriander soup base that combines the green herb with condensed milk to create a broth perfect for coriander lovers. Dial it up to 11 by pairing this soup base with their fresh shrimp and coriander siu mai, coriander spam dumplings, beef and coriander rolls, and coriander and preserved egg dumplings.

For a taste of Southeast Asia, head to Happy Valley’s Cloud Nine hotpot, established by the same crew from Sheung Wan’s former Southeast Asian noodle bar Mean Noodles. Staying true to their roots, the team has created a range of Southeast Asian soup staples including Nyonya laksa, Malaysian bak kut teh, Thai tom yum and coconut chicken soup, and Vietnamese beef bone stock and coconut and clam soup. Of course, there’ll also be regional delicacies to accompany your usual seafood and meats, such as red curry fishballs, belacan shrimp balls, Thai grounded beef dumplings, Padang beef dumplings, deep fried tom yum soft shell crab, spicy stir fried coconut clams, and more.

Megan’s Kitchen refreshes their menu every year, and one of their most recent standouts is the crispy coconut Sanbeiji chicken soup base, made with chicken and pork bone cooked over 10 hours, before adding in taro, corn, coconut milk, water, and meat; a range of spices and herbs; an egg; wine; and a top layer of bread crumbs to create a crispy texture. When the pot is served, the restaurant also adds in half a chicken that’s been marinated with Chinese rose wine, double-distilled rice wine, and Shaojiu to further enhance the soup’s flavours.

If you’re in Lai Chi Kok, make sure to pay the Greater China Club Annex a visit. The esteemed Chinese restaurant has created eight premium soup bases for hotpot enthusiasts to enjoy, including the Buddha Temptation that’s made with abalone, fish maw, and sea cucumber; fish maw and chicken soup; shark bone, pork bone, and pepper soup; Angus beef satay soup; tianma fish head soup, Sichuan spicy soup; Chinese fungus and mushroom soup; and Chinese herbal soup. The restaurant's ingredients are also just as high quality, offering plates of fresh local beef and premium seafood flown directly from Canada, Australia, Alaska, and Scotland.

Located on Wyndham Street in Central is the 5,000sq ft space of Hot Pot Land, a popular hotpot destination among locals thanks to their innovative soup bases. The highlight for us is the signature pepper, pork tripe, and chicken pot, which combines a three yellow chicken with pork tripe and Chinese medicinal herbs. The restaurant also offers other specialties such as their spicy and clear broth, sauerkraut and meat soup, traditional Taiwanese duck blood, homemade frozen tofu, custard buns, and different shrimp and squid pastes.

With over 60 restaurants across Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, and more, Coucou Hotpot specialises in both modern Taiwanese hotpot as well as the island’s beloved fresh made tea beverages. The franchise’s Hong Kong branch offers a range of fan-favourite soup bases including fish maw and chicken soup, tomato and beef shank soup, Sichuan spicy soup, and their signature Taiwanese spicy soup, made with chicken and beef bones cooked in broth for six hours, before adding in a myriad of Chinese medicinal herbs and spices to cook it for another two hours.