Top 20 Hong Kong Must Eat Places - A HK Food Guide (2024)

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One of the things you quickly realize about Hong Kong is that people here LOVE 2 things: shopping and eating. If the locals aren’t out on the streets of Causeway Bay making purchases at SOGOor buying the latest Louis Vuitton bag, they’re out having dim sum or checking out the hottest eateries. But the question is, where should you eat in HK?

If you’re visiting Hong Kong, you’ll soon realize that there’s just not enough time and stomach space for you to eat through everything so I’ve compiled this list of the top 20 restaurants in Hong Kong. I want to help satisfy your food cravings with these Hong Kong must eat places.

Note that there is no particular order for the restaurants other than the fact that I’ve separated the savoury restaurants from the dessert spots.

Second stomach required?

In short, the answer is yes.

I guarantee you now that when you go to Hong Kong, you will end up eating your way through it. I myself felt that I honestly needed a second stomach to get through the day.

The big trick you learn after a few “I had way too much food and I don’t feel so well” days is that you have to keep your meals small. You can have your defined breakfasts, lunches and dinners but if there’s 2 of you, just order one entréeand be done with it because along the way, you just know you’re going to be picking up other food that suits your fancy. This way, you’ll never be over-stuffed from any of the big meals and you’ll leave some space for all the snacking you’ll be doing from place to place.

Best Restaurants in Hong Kong

Click on the links below to jump straight to the reviews of this Hong Kong food guide

1. Tim Ho Wan
2. Tung Po
3. Lei Garden
4. Ho Hung Kee
5. Tsui Wah
6. Ichiran
7. Pak Lok Chiu Chow
8. Home-made Cuisine
9. Indonesian Restaurant 1968
10. Fish Ball Noodle Shop
11. The Lobby Afternoon Tea
12. Australia Dairy Company
13. Yee Shun Dairy Company
14. Via Tokyo
15. Lab Made
16. Coffee Alley
17. Sinmea Tea
18. Honeymoon Dessert
19. Mobile Softee
20. Street Food

Map of Best Hong Kong Restaurants

Hong Kong Must Eat Restaurants

Note all ratings and prices are out of 5.

Tim Ho Wan, the Dim-Sum Specialists 添好運點心專門店

You’ve heard of the Michelin Guide right? If you haven’t, it’s a well respected and highly regarded guide on top restaurants around the world. It’s based on a 3 star system and just to get one is an honor. In 2019, Michelin released their latest edition for Hong Kong & Macau and Tim Ho Wan retained their one star. Now what’s unique about Hong Kong is that it’s home to the cheapest Michelin starred restaurants. Instead of paying steep dollars for a Michelin experience, take advantage of your time in Hong Kong and have some of the best dim sum you’ll ever have at Tim Ho Wan.

I know I hype this up like crazy and I was a bit worried on this trip because I didn’t want to over-hype it to my girlfriend but after having my second Tim Ho Wan experience, we both agreed that this was simply the best dim sum ever. The whole time we were eating there, we were just constantly nodding our heads in approval and savouring every last bite. I think it means a lot thateven after all of my hyping, it was able to meet the sky highexpectations. You will certainly not be disappointed.

The menu itself isn’t expansive. They stick to the dim sumclassics and make all of it fresh and on premise.

The top dishes to get in my mind are: The Baked Bun with BBQ Pork (mind blowing), Steamed Egg Cake, Vermicelli Roll Stuffed with Shrimp (also known as a steamed rice roll) and Pan-Fried Turnip Cake.

Make sure to check out the full list of the 2019 selection of Hong Kong & Macau Michelin rated restaurants.

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Tung Po 東寶小館

Dai Pai Dong or really open-air food stalls used tobe littered all over the city. This was truly the best way to get authentic street food and do it for super cheap. However, the city cracked down on a lot of these due to health and safety regulations and as a result there are only 28 left today.

A lot of them are all amazing but I bring your attention to Tung Po because the relatives we were staying at told us that this particular place was super popular because it had amazing seafoods but uncharacteristic of a Dai Pai Dong, was housed indoors and air conditioned. In addition because its in a municipal building, they’re also extremely clean which is a bit of a concern when you’re having street food. I was thoroughly impressed with this place as it had that old-school food stall vibe with the waiters yelling out orders, food being quickly shuffled from kitchen to desk and even beer girls trying to sell their beer. The place is loud and really alive. The hustle and bustle really makes you excited and very hungry.

The menu itself is quite expansive as well as I remember being totally unsure about what to order simply because there was so much selection. Luckily, the relatives were able to make those picks. The food that came out was all quite amazing. The seafood was fresh and was surprised they even had dishes like squid ink pasta. Don’t think there was a bad dish in the bunch we ordered at all.

For a place like this, it works out well to have a large group of people so that you can try different foods and really have a good night especially with all those beers. From the looks of it, a lot of expats knew about this restaurant as I saw quite a few foreigners here as well on top of the many local regulars here.

What surprised me however was our bill at the end. The food I will say is definitely on the higher side of things in Hong Kong so don’t think that because you’re going to some “food stall” place that it’ll be cheap. For the 4 of us, the bill I remember racked up to about $100 CAD. Pricey meal but was quite the unique experience and had excellent memorable dishes.

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Lei Garden利苑酒家

Dim sum can be found all around the city and they vary in quality and price. Lei Garden belongs to the high class side of things but deliver on some amazing and unique dishes that impressed even myself.

I think “inventive” is a word that comes to mind when I think about Lei Garden. What makes them stand out from some of the other dim sum I had in Hong Kong was how they’ve able to put interesting spins on traditional dishes. The now famouspomelo, mango dessert that’s found everywhere was apparently invented by Lei Garden and so is their sticky rice date dessert.

Their quality is top notch through and through as well as their service. If you’re wanting to do a fancier dim sum session, Lei Garden is the place to go to. They have a bunch of locations scattered around Hong Kong and Kowloon so you have choices outside of Causeway Bay.

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Ho Hung Kee何洪記

A friend had recommended Ho Hung Kee to me from her last trip to Hong Kong and at first we didn’t have plans to go but then my girlfriend’s relatives set something up so we actually got to go. This restaurant actually had one Michelin star in 2013 but lost it for 2014. Not quite sure why but regardless it is still a well known restaurant with a lot of history.

Although I wasn’t blown away by this restaurant, the one thing that surprised me was how good their fried noodles (chau fun) were. Fried noodles for me isusually very standard fare akin to steamed rice but in this instance, there was something about howperfectly cooked the noodles were, the subtle taste infused while it was fried up. It’s the kind of thing where you think you know how it should taste and take it for granted until you try it somewhere like here where they totally raise the bar. Ho Hung Kee is also known for its wonton noodles. They were good but I think ones you get in small local noodle shops are better and cheaper.

This new location is on the 12th floor of the Hysan Place mall so you’ll need to take the elevator + escalator to get there. Also expect lines here so I would try to come early if possible.

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Tsui Wah翠華餐廳

Mega chain for tea restaurants or “cha cha tang” in Hong Kong. Cha cha tangs are basically a mix of western and Asian cuisines in a quick, fast food type setting.

You’ll see this practically at every cornerand you’d expect chain level food but honestly I loved it every time I ate here. It’s great for breakfast, lunch or dinner. There’s food for every meal.

My favorites for Tsui Wah include their pineapple bun which even locals rave as the best in Hong Kong, french toast and their fish balls & fish cakes w/flat rice noodles in fish soup. Their milk teas are also done as well as any other cha cha tang I’ve been to.

They recently opened one at The Peak which we ate at and I was impressed that they didn’t jack up the prices there that much. A great dinner to have after watching the light show from the top.

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Ichiran天然豚骨拉麵專門店一蘭

This was another restaurant we accidentally stumbled upon while walking to another restaurant in Causeway Bay. We saw the long lines and wondered what this place was. I opened my trusty OpenRice app and realized that this was “hot sh*t” and ranked near the top. Hong Kong folks love top rated places like this and this just adds to long queues. An import from Japan, this restaurant has taken the city by storm with its traditional Hakata style ramen.

Everything about this place is unique. The setting is a casual and rustic eatery with 36 individual booths designed for you to savouryour ramen privately. The ordering system is also pretty cool as well. In your booth is a piece of paper where you have tomake a decision about: flavor strength, richness (oiliness), garlic, green onions, sliced pork, red sauce strength, noodle texture and whether you want any extras like seaweed, egg. You can order their tofudessert on this sheet as well. The entire experience feels almostmystical because once you finish writing the sheet, you press a button and place your paper in a platter. The lady behind the booth takes it, leaves a copy of the paper in case you want to order an extra serving of noodles. When the ramen arrives, they place it on your table and then close the bamboo curtain.

We first started with the tofu dessertwhich we had to figure out how to eat. They give you two per order and at first we thought it was a dessert for two but counterintuitively,what you’re supposed to do is have the first one before eating your noodles to clear your palette. The pudding itself isn’t very flavorful but has a slight sesame taste to it. After that we ate our ramen which was fantastic. You can really taste the freshness coming from the ingredients that come straight from Japan. The soup base is flavorful and the noodles the right amount of firmness. The was however a bit disappointed with the egg that I ordered. I was expecting the type of egg you get at Ramen Dojo in San Francisco which is poached to just the right amount of “cooked-ness” but this egg on top of being a bit more cooked than I like, was also cold. I’m guessing that that the nature of it being cold is actually more authentic.

After the ramen, we finished things off with the second half of our dessert which was the same tofu dessert except you put on a syrup. We weren’t too impressed with the pudding but it was a good experience to try it out to fully experience Hakata style ramen.

I’m really not a ramen connoisseur and although I thought the ramen was good, I didn’t find it any better than the top ramen places in North America like Ramen Dojo. Experience is top notch though. There’s nothing like eating ramen in your very own tiny booth.

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Pak Lok Chiu Chow百樂潮州酒樓

If you haven’t noticed yet, we spent A LOT of time in Causeway Bay, hence all the restaurants in the area. But seriously there’s a lot of good food here! For our final dinner in Hong Kong before we had to fly back to Toronto, we were treated to this restaurant in Times Square.

I don’t think I’ve ever had Chiu Chow cuisine before so this was my first time. My girlfriend’s relatives did all the ordering and the dishes we got were all super tasty.

The most memorable dishes include goose meat, fried egg pancake with an explosion of oysters and the fried noodle pancake where you would take a slice and then add sugar and vinegar. The caveat of this place is that you’re going to be dropping a good amount of dough for it.

This probably wouldn’t be somewhere I’d visit if I was just touring the city but I thought I’d add it here in case any of you wanted to do big dinners with larger groups.

Home-made Cuisine愛吃家常便飯

This restaurant wasn’t on my radar at all with so many restaurants to pick in this area but my girlfriend’s relatives brought us here on their recommendation.

Jaffe Road is loaded with restaurants and this one has a tiny storefront that is easily missed. The big draw to this restaurant is really the chicken stuffed with shrimp fried rice which I thought was quite epic. The skin is perfectly crisped, the chicken juicy succulent and the rice inside perfectly cooked. It is so popular that you actually have to call in advance to reserve a chicken and have it prepared in advanced from what the relatives told me.

Their other dishes were actually all good as well. We had a shrimp dish, spare ribs and vegetables which were tasty and well flavoredand cooked.

If you have a day where you want to have unique Chinese food but not have to go to banquet hall type of place, definitely consider Home-made Cuisine!

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Indonesian Restaurant 1968印尼餐廳1968

It’s rare to find an authentic Indonesian restaurant in the middle of Hong Kong but this is it. It’s completely legit and 100% satisfied our cravings for Nasi Goring that we had ever since I did my trip to Bali 2 years ago.

This restaurant is located in one of the finance districts so it’s definitely more upscale, hip and modern but as a result also pricey so adjust your expectations on portion size and pricing. That being said, we both had a lovely experience sharing that one Nasi Goreng bowl and splitting an appetizer. Like I said before, the trick to eating in Hong Kong is to have small, small portions.

Fish Ball Noodle Shop in Causeway Bay江仔記粉面專家

To close off the savoury section is this hidden fish ball noodle shop in Causeway Bay. My girlfriend loves her fish balls and swears by this place as the best in the city.

After a day of hiking on Lamma Island and having a dinner there, we filled our tummies a bit more with food from this place.

It’s definitely not a place that tourists will frequent so the atmosphere is completely authentic. The seats and tables are cramped and you’ll most likely have to share a table with workers grabbing solo dinners before heading home.

As promised, the noodles here were done to perfection. The fish balls were completely fresh and the noodles had the perfect amount of bounce to them.

If you can find this place, I’d totally recommend you checking it out and eat like a local.

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Alright now on to my favourite meal of the day…snack and dessert time!

The Lobby at The Peninsula Hotel半島酒店大堂茶座

I’ve never done afternoon tea in my life but thanks to my lovely girlfriend, I was treated to an amazing one in The Lobby at the Peninsula Hotel. What a way to set the bar with this iconic hotel and the quintessential afternoon tea experience. In the heart of TST, this hotel evokes the style and decor of the 1930s – a by-gone era. From the intricate ceiling work, the sweet sounds of the quartet playing in the balcony to the elegant tablewares andfancy porcelain cups,presentation is impeccable.

After waiting in line for about 40 minutes with the rest of the tourists, we were given our seats. Looking around, everyone was working on their afternoon tea platter so there was really no question around what to order. The trickier part was figuring out what kind of tea we wanted. I eventually picked one of their herbal infusions. The first to arrive was the tea which came in a classical metal teapot, the kind that the Queen of England probably pours from. Following proper tea pouring protocol, our server lifted the teapot with custom handle mitts and slowly poured the tea over a metal strainer that sat overtop my teacup. The whole ritual was mesmerizing and we certainly didn’t repeat the process with the same level of elegance later on. The particular herbal tea that I had was goodI thought but then again, I’m not very picky about the teas. Chantelle’s tea was much more fruity which I liked but honestly can’t remember what she ordered.

When our triple decker platter came, my jaw dropped over the amount of food this was going to be. For a fancy place like this I totally expected them to stinge on the food but wow was there a lot to dig through. Everything from the scones and the amazing cream and jam to the smoked salmon sandwich in the middle and macarons at the top were amazing.

Here’s the breakdown:

Bottom plate

• 4 raisin scones with Devonshire clotted cream, organic strawberry preserve

Middle plate

• Prosciutto sandwich
• Cucumber and cream cheese fill sandwich
• Mini chicken pot pie
• Pastry with mushroom
• Smoked salmon sandwich

Top plate

• Green pound cake with raisin
• Lemon madeleine
• Jello top red velvet cake with chocolate on top
• Key lime with marshmallow top
• Butterscotch macaron
• Lemon cream macaron

The Lobby and their afternoon tea is not to be missed. Decadence at its finest!

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Australia Dairy Company 澳洲牛奶公司

We totally stumbled upon this quite randomly as we were walking from Tsim ShaTsui to Mong Kok. I remember reading about this on another blog and even though I wasn’t particularly hungry at this point, we went in anyways. That’s kind of just how our days went in Hong Kong.

The big must-have item here is the egg sandwich and boy did itpack a wallop. This egg sandwich was ginormous and the egg itself so juicy and fluffy at the same time. We also tried their steamedeggpudding and I thought that was stellar as well. It was a much more full bodied and creamier than the steamed milk pudding that we had later atYee Shun Dairy Company.

The restaurant itself is a very traditional HK-style restaurant but surprisingly very clean. Also don’t let the name of the place throw you off. I was confused myself at first but once you go inside you realize it has nothing to do with Australia. I even checked out some of the dairy they were selling and it was all of the Kowloon variety.

This is the kind of place that would be great for a breakfast if you can plan around it but aside from that I’d only come here to do a little bit of food sampling as a snack and move on.

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Yee ShunDairy Company港澳義順牛奶公司

Back home, there are only a few special restaurants that make the steamed milk pudding for dim sum and even then it’s average. If you’re a fan of this type of pudding (in Chinese it translates to “double skin milk”), you’re in for a treat here. This is pretty much all they specialize in and is quite well known in Hong Kong. They do come in a bunch of flavours but I think it’s best if you stick to the original flavour. You have a choice of hot or cold but I think the best way (and original way) to have the milk pudding is hot.

There are many locations in Hong Kong so if you see the cow, drop by. The shops never look like much on the outside but these desserts are mightily tasty.

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Via Tokyo

This is the latest in Hong Kong’s craze over Japanese green tea matcha. For the longest time, City Super grocery stores had the best green tea calledSweets House Cha Cha. People would line up for this place and everything but since ViaTokyo opened, everyone started flocking over to these guys. If you check OpenRice, this is also at the top of the list so we knew we had to check it out.

The big test for us was how it would match up against Sweets House Cha Cha. To my surprise, the green tea ice cream at Via Tokyo was EVEN BETTER. The matcha flavouring at Via Tokyo is simply much more rich and more authentic tasting. I can’t say the Sweets House Cha Cha one tastes artificial in any way but with Via Tokyo, the flavour is that much more impactful on your tastebuds.

Would definitely recommend this for a quick stopover if you’re in Causeway Bay. Seats are hard to come by even on a weekday afternoon but grab something to go and enjoy it on your walk to your next spot.

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Lab Made分子雪糕專門店

A totally unique experience for anyone that’s never been to a liquid nitrogen based ice cream shop. This modernly-staged ice cream parlour is located in the new hip area of Tai Hang of Hong Kong. Storefront freezers and ice cream tubs are replaced by a multitude of Kitchen-Aid mixers behind a panel of glass. All the ice cream is made fresh and right in front of you where liquid nitrogen is used to flash-freeze the ingredients of the flavour you order. This makes for a much more creamy, dense and smoother ice cream and unlimited possibilities for flavours.

The big draw for Lab Made is not only the crazy presentation of liquid nitrogen smoke engulfing the counters when making the ice cream but also the whacky and fun flavours they rotate through. When we were there, they had chocolate mint with Baileys, banana cashew, Thai coconut mango sticky rice and strawberry shortcake. Over the course of two visits to two different locations, I was able to try all the flavours and truthfully loved all of them. The Thai coconut mango sticky rice was particularly memorablebecause Icould literally taste the unique texture of rice in the ice cream.

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Coffee Alley咖啡弄

Coffee Alley is a Taiwanese coffee shop that has garnered a lot of hypeand like Ichiran, you’re contending against a lot of other tourists and locals that want in on the action. After a good 40 minute wait in line for the second sitting, we were finally able to grab a table. Due to the high demand of the place, they also institute a seating time limit and also impose a drink-per-person rule which I was a bit surprised about.

What makes Coffee Alley unique is really in presentation and uniqueness. They’re not just any sort of cafe shop but they strive to reinvent.

For drinks I ordered the Slow Drip Viennese Coffeewhile Chantelle ordered the Iced Fresh FruitTea. The coffee was good but very strong and cream filled. The chilled tea I thought was really good. Their ice cubes were actual frozen wedges of fruit which was pretty cool.

Their food items were all very enticing but eventually picked theLoin Cheese Croissants Sandwich andBarbeque Pork Sandwich. Both were incredibly large dishes and tasty. The croissant was well made and cheese nice and melty over the large slice of ham. My favourite was definitely the pork sandwich. Although it was very messy to eat once it fell apart, I enjoyed the large slabs of pork between toasted bread and a special type of yellow mustard-like sauce.

To finish things off, we couldn’t leave without trying their desserts so we ordered their signature Ice Cream with Cotton Candy & EspressoandGolden Napoleon Mille-feuille. The cotton candy ice cream was quite the experience because you’d get this platter holding a tall cone of cotton candy and as you pour the espresso over it, the cotton candy contracts and dissolves before your eyes. What you’re left in the end is ice cream and caramelized sugar drowned in espresso. However I thought the show was more impressive than the taste. The napoleon cake was really well done and much lighter and fluffier than the Italian version.

We were completely stuffed after our lunch. If we were to do it again, I would have only ordered one entree between the two of us. We definitely didn’t expect such large sandwiches.

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Sinmei Tea 川善茶居

This is for the true matcha green tea lovers. The owner of this place is Japanese so everything here is quite authentic. The decor is more towards a traditional Japanese/Chinese tea house. On one end of the teahouse is a wooden shelf with a circular entrance and quite the extensive collection of oriental tea pots. Oh and I should mention that there’s quite the mischievous cat that roams around between the tables and chairs.

The unfortunate thing for us that we were still stuffed from lunch so when we got here all we had the stomach for were a few drinks. From the OpenRice reviews, I knew that their green tea molten cake and matcha loaf cake were supposed to be really good. For us we just tried the signature Matcha Soul drink whichis served with honey, almonds, and dried osmanthus flower bits and the Matcha Genmaicha Marone which is served with roasted rice and chestnuts. The Matcha Soul wasn’t too overpowering and I liked how it was balanced out with the honey and additional bits. I found that the Matcha Genmaicha Marone was a little less flavorful and so not as good as the Matcha Soul. Both drinks were almost identical and if I were to do it all over again, I’d try one of the cold drinks like the Matcha Mojito.

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Honeymoon Dessert滿記甜品

This is a big Chinese dessert chain in Hong Kong that originated from the town of Sai Kung. It’s gotten so huge in fact, you can now find them in China, Indonesia and Singapore. This was my first time having them and I was pleasantly surprised. They were very fast-food oriented though this may be because at Hysan Place, it’s literally in a food court but everything seemed to be “to go”.

I had no idea what to order so I picked up item Iwhich is basically mango and whipped cream wrapped in this thick crepe. I thought it was pretty good until I tried item C called Snow White Sago. It’s a combination of coconut milk, fresh mangoes, toddy palm, bananas, sago, passion fruit and ice cream. It may not look the most appetizing in pictures but trust me it’s good. Somehow the eclectic combination of those random things created a a refreshing dessert with different contrasting flavors and textures.

Outside of these options you have all your traditional Chinese desserts including almond and sesame soups, bird’s nest, durian, grass jelly, sticky rice balls etc. Lots to choose from and a great option if you want to grab dessert.

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MobileSoftee

Can’t provide any real details about this because of the mobile nature of MobileSoftee. It’s basically a ice cream truck and all they really sell is soft serve but there’s something incredibly addictive about their soft serve. I haven’t quite pinpointed it but I think it’s the extra creaminess of the ice cream that draws me in. Price is only 9HKD as well. This is way better than what you get at McDonalds that’s for sure.

For locals Mobile Softee brings back a lot of sweet childhood memories that accompany the “Blue Danube” melody that the trucks play. Aside from the soft ice-cream, they also serve a nutty drumstick, large cups and jumbo orange.

Your best chances of bumping into Mobile Softee is at Golden Bauhunia Square, the Star Ferry Pier/Victoria Harbor in Tsim Sha Tsui and Mong Kok.

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Street Food

How can I forget Hong Kong’s street food. It’s really hard to pin point the exact locations of these places but here are a few different type of foods you should look out for when you’re roaming around.

Now go forth and begin your food eating adventure in Hong Kong!

Looking For Activities in Hong Kong?

GetYourGuide is a platform of choice. Take a look at a few of these popular activities in the city that I think you’ll like. Book them before they sell out!

Looking For A Good Place To Stay?

If you’re planning your trip to Hong Kong and thinking about food and you’re likely looking for a place to stay as well. From personal experience, finding a reasonably priced place is tricky but here are two places that I hand selected as ones that are in good locations and won’t break the bank. If these don’t suit your fancy, find other great places in Hong Kong to stay in.

GREAT LOCATION

GDH HOTEL

Formerly known asFormerly Guangdong Hotel Hong Kong, this hotel is right in the heart of Tsim Sha Tsui. While the reviews are just ok, the rooms look great and you can’t beat the location.

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GREAT PRICE

MINIMAL HOTEL CULTURE

Located in Sham Sui Po, it’s slightly further out but being on the subway line means you can get down to TST, MK or even Central really easily. You can’t beat this price though for something clean and modern.

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