Tai Kwun is the converging point between art, culture, and heritage in Hong Kong. Modern restaurants, bars, boutique stores, and art exhibitions breathe life into an 100-year-old compound that once housed the Former Central Police Station.
Positioned front and centre of the central yard inside Hong Kong’s foremost cultural destination is a meeting of hospitality and lifestyle retail with the Moleskine Café | nodi, a first for Hong Kong.
The café, which opened in Tai Kwun in October 2025, represents an elaboration for both the Italian lifestyle retail brand and Hong Kong-born specialty coffee chain. With the former promoting their sleek lineup of notebooks, planners, personalization & writing tools, and the latter supplying specialty coffee, Moleskine is expanding their brand identity to encompass art and good taste.
“Hong Kong is an extremely energetic city, but I think sometimes, due to space constraints and noise, we tend to lack time for our own creativity,” Merwann Younes, global head of hospitality and lifestyle channels at Moleskine, shares.
“Putting pen to paper and working on Moleskine products gives you the time and the possibility to have a moment for yourself, to be able to express your own creativity.”
With this philosophy central to Moleskine not only in Hong Kong but globally, the Moleskine Café is pertinent in welcoming customers into a space that encourages one to linger, consume, and pause.
The café is sleek with a bold black and woody design and coloured with Moleskine’s bright leather-backed notebooks and the “Inspiration Wall” signature.
Passing the café’s outdoor seating, a physical and visual expression of Moleskine in furniture-form, the exhibition inside invites customers to appreciate hand-painted and drawn cover art made by local Hong Kong artists and produced on Moleskine notebooks.
In the time it takes to order a flat white or espresso and a fresh croissant, and peruse Moleskine’s current catalogue of writing products, you can order your custom-made printed Moleskine notebook with your selected art replicated from the “Inspiration Wall”.
Complementing the exhibition, Merwann sees great synergy with nodi as a partner to bring Moleskine into the hospitality industry, notably with its role in powering Hong Kong with coffee imported from Brazil, Indonesia, Colombia, and Uganda.
With 12 locations across the city, nodi is favoured by Hong Kongers for their in-house roasted beans, sourced ethically from global farms.
“We began this journey at a Moleskine popup in Charter House for a year, producing custom notebooks made with custom art by local artists. Neighbouring us was nodi who provided customers with coffee whilst they waited for their orders to be complete. This felt natural and complementary to what we were providing and we wanted to continue this relationship in a more concrete way.”
“When Tai Kwun engaged with us to open a new Moleskine retail shop, they wanted something that other brands could not offer. They didn’t want just a Moleskine store, nor just a coffee shop, so the Moleskine Café was re-born.”
“Most importantly, what is even more relevant for Hong Kong, is that we need to engage with the local community. With Moleskine and nodi having a similar customer base, we wanted to relate to new customers interested in art, coffee, and lifestyle.”
“I think we think it’s very important to work with partners geographically where they are strong. nodi is very strong in Hong Kong and that benefits us to attract new customers who have an affinity with the brand and its coffee products. These customers are more likely to understand our new café concept and become customers of Moleskine.”
Sindy Wong, Head of Consumer and Hospitality of InvestHK, notes: “The Moleskine Café | nodi is a perfect case of retail and hospitality brands joining forces to provide a unique experience that goes beyond shopping or coffee.”
“Visitors and residents exploring Tai Kwun can now see Moleskine as a brand that cares not only about your creative endeavours, but your daily fix of coffee and pastries and eye for local artistic expression. The notebook becomes a diary of life’s moments, and the coffee beside it makes each one a little more memorable.”
Closing in on the 8th year anniversary of Tai Kwun, Moleskine Café | nodi brings vibrancy and electricity to the Central hub for dining and shopping. The café has become a trendy destination to visit, shop at, and share on social media.
As Merwann adds, “it is good for the city to remind people that we can have a moment to pause and express our own creative mindset at this café.”
This feature was brought to Foodie in partnership with InvestHK.
