In recent years, Hong Kong’s art, design, and architecture scene has flourished, sparked in part by the late 2021 opening of the M+ museum, designed by Herzog & de Meuron. Art Basel Hong Kong, launched in 2013, grows with each return and anchors satellite events such as Art Central and the Edible Art Fair. And the landmark architecture additions keep on coming: The city will soon be seeing the unveiling of the WestK Performing Arts Centre (WestK PAC) designed by UNStudio, joining the recently-completed, Zaha Hadid-designed tower known as The Henderson, home to Christie’s Hong Kong headquarters as well as Peridot, a lime-green, eye-popping wonder of a cocktail lounge.
“There’s the impression of Hong Kong as a hyper-efficient financial capital, all modern skyscrapers,” says interior designer and Hong Kong native Vincent Lim, who returned to the city in 2015 after a decade in New York. “But the Hong Kong we love is more textured than that.” Spend even a couple of days here and you’ll realize the glass towers are interspersed with traditional street stalls, wet markets, family-run businesses, and vintage cha chaan tengs, the Colonial-era cafés that still serve milk tea, toast, and pork chop rice. “The layering of the city is what makes it special,” Lim says.
Laura Cheung, founder of decorative furnishings brand Lala Curio, agrees that it’s the atmospheric little alleyways and decades-old shops with vintage neon signs that design-lovers find especially alluring. “I can’t think of another city where, in its prime commercial center, you still have these little family-run antiques shops and fruit stalls lined with red and blue canvas,” she says. “But then there’ll be a hidden door, and inside that, the chicest speakeasy lounge.” Cheung loves the mix of old and new, the humble and the high-flying, or, as she describes it, “the wonton noodle shop sitting beside a sleek new building.”
To get our footing in this city of contradictions, we turned to five Hong Kong design insiders for their personal recommendations on where to stay, eat, shop and wander.
Meet the experts
Pak Man Lee is the founder and CEO of Nuovo, a contemporary design gallery in the Central district known for its experimental exhibitions
Vincent Lim & Elaine Lu are the husband-and-wife team behind Lim + Lu, an award-winning interdisciplinary interior design practice based in Hong Kong
