Rubin Verebes is the managing editor of Foodie and is very opinionated. Transforming his hobby of eating and drinking into a career, he shares his account of Hong Kong’s F&B scene and the worldwide state of dining in Rubin’s Take, his dedicated opinion column.
In early March, I attended the media mixer marking the opening of Terrace Boulud, the much-anticipated ‘opening-of-the-year’ taking the place of the beloved former SEVVA in downtown Central and led by the illustrious chef Daniel Boulud.
I rubbed shoulders with journalism friends, sipped champagne, swallowed many small canapes teasing chef Daniel’s larger menu, and ogled at a view that I consider utterly classic and so Hong Kong.
Restaurants open all the time in Hong Kong, but this one feels different, special. What once housed an irreverent social space – and not just a restaurant & bar – will now bring diners a suave, sophisticated, and globally-familiar vibe per the Boulud brand.
Recent news has indicated that Hong Kong has quickly, maybe even loudly, become the hottest market for dining in Asia. One of Bangkok’s most popular noodle shops Thong Smith arrived in March, the world’s 13th best pizza chain Vincenzo Capuano will officially call Hong Kong home soon, and Tokyo’s 2nd best ramen Ramenya Shima now operates in the city.
Consider also the deluge of Japanese and Korean restaurant brands piling into the city in 2025 and early 2026 and you may be asking yourself, “is Hong Kong back?”
“Hong Kong is so back!” was a constant tagline seen on stories shared on Instagram or commented on social media posts from 2023 and 2024 when international brands, events, and arty, cultural names announced their way back into Hong Kong.
Hong Kongers were understandably aching to rid a pandemic-era stagnance and ready to support Hong Kong’s predictable return to the international stage. 2023 was quiet, 2024 felt like a rebirthing and reconfiguration, and 2025 was when things finally clicked. It feels like 2026 has it back.
This is not to say that Hong Kong has weathered the storm perfectly. Shenzhen’s dining affordability and accessibility within the GBA has lured many to skip out on relatively more expensive dining in Hong Kong, and geopolitics has further hurt restaurants, forcing many, many, many, many, many legacy venues to close in the past three years.
As of recent, Hong Kong’s local dining scene, bar the regional and international imports supporting an east-meets-west identity that defines the city, has also seen calm. Diners are pouring back into their favourite cha chaan tengs, dai pai dongs, restaurants, bars, and cafes, proud of eating locally and witnessing many businesses adapting for the better in this new era.
There is a confidence not seen since the late 2010s that Hong Kong’s hospitality industry now understands how to build and reposition venues that can last and continually please diners, even when budgets have decreased and tastes have changed.
Eating in Hong Kong is now cool again. The millions of tourists that had visited the city in 2025 showed that Hong Kong outstrips neighbouring competitors for the continent’s best food and drinks. Our city has the World’s Best Bar, dozens of award-winning restaurants, and a repertoire of cool and travel-worthy Western and Asian cuisine venues.
What does the future of ‘back’ Hong Kong look like?
I suspect more international chefs to come to Hong Kong for their next experiment, Vietnamese, Indonesian, and Malaysian to become the next cuisines to see a modernising of their food, more bars and restaurants to collect even more stars and top 50 rankings, and even more Hong Kongers voluntarily turning into global ambassadors preaching to the world how much fun eating and drinking in Hong Kong is.
The views expressed in this column are those of the authors and do not represent or reflect the views of Foodie.
