Hong Kong in 48 Hours by Cynthia Rosenfeld
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The Landmark Mandarin Oriental
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Land with a plan is my motto for 48 hours of fun in this sexy sliver of China that’s not quite Chinese but no longer colonial either.
Day One:
5:00 pm Climb aboard the Airport Express, the most efficient and economical route from Hong Kong International Airport. Hop off at Kowloon Station, around a twenty minute zoom past the unexpectedly bucolic landscape interspersed with Hong Kong’s glass towers.
6:00 pm Step into the LED lit elevator at the W Hong Kong (1 Austin Road West, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon). Hightail it to Asia’s first Bliss Spa on the 72nd floor for a quick pick-me-up massage, soak in the roomy Jacuzzi with panoramic city views or pick your polish off the Nail Bar’s inventive conveyor belt to get lacquered up for the night.
8:00 pm Buzz is building around Chef Bryan Nagao at D.Diamond Restaurant & Bar (Roof Garden R001, Elements, 1 Austin Road West, Kowloon). Display cases are filled with Damiani fine jewellery. Inventive dishes come to the table, like seared Chilean sea bass with crispy pork belly and pine nut and mint-crusted lamb chops with grilled pumpkin. Add the warm chocolate cake accompanied by homemade vanilla ice cream with fresh wasabi.
11:00 pm The night is still young, but the crowd extends to all adult ages at Salon de Ning (The Peninsula Hong Kong, Salisbury Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon), filled with souvenirs from the far-flung travels of Madame Ning, an entirely imagined but nonetheless stylish adventuress. Swig Ning Slings made with Absolut mandarin, lychee liquor, and passion fruit puree on the dance floor alongside bespoke suits and this season’s most coveted stilettos.
6:00 am Ride up to the rooftop to watch the sunrise from the 76th floor outdoor infinity pool, the highest in Hong Kong. Take breakfast at your leisure inside W’s cavernous Kitchen restaurant, popular for its “interactive breakfast” buffet with fluffy homemade muffins, Wagyu beef sausage and ruby-berry juice.
10:00 am Move your groove across the harbor for a life-changing Omorovicza facial at the Oriental Spa at The Landmark Mandarin Oriental (15 Queen’s Road Central, Central). Even those with the most sensitive skin can relax while Mandarin’s tip top therapists smooth on the thermal, cleansing balms to stimulate circulation and detoxify.
11:30 am Having made your appointment in advance, saunter across Queen’s Road Central and straight up Icehouse Street to Youmna (Baskerville House, 8th Floor, Icehouse Street, Central). The French Lebanese jeweler meets clients by appointment at her minimalist white lacquered showroom with tropical views of The Hong Kong Botanical Gardens. Youmna spends time in front of the mirror with each client to identify pieces of jewellery in her signature 18 karat Florentine matte that “make each woman look and feel her most divine.”
1:00 pm The Woo Cheong Pawn Shop, a four-storey complex of four adjacent shop houses from 1888 has become The Pawn (62 Johnston Road, Wan Chai), a colonial chic gastro-pub and lounge. The Anglo comfort food menu features colonial faves, like roast bone marrow with horseradish cream and fish & chips with mushy peas.
3:00 pm Meander to Ooi Botos Gallery (5 Gresson Street, Wan Chai), a contemporary Chinese art gallery between the fruit vendors and street stalls of Wan Chai Market, one of the last slivers of old Hong Kong. Behind its jaw-dropping, red-rippled fibreglass façade, the gallery mounts exhibitions of avant-garde photography, video and installation art that explore China’s rapid 21st century growth in Technicolor.
4:30 Stop in for an afternoon snack at Vero (1/F Fenwick Pier, 1 Lung King Street, Wan Chai) with floor to ceiling views of the Hong Kong skyline and Victoria Harbour. Sip authentic espresso and sample handcrafted artisanal chocolates in unexpected flavors, like honey mustard, apple and thyme and banana-mint.
6:00 pm Check in at Hong Kong Island’s latest luxury hotel, The Upper House. Behind the sleek modern façade of Bedonia stone, everyone is gawking at the swish interiors by Andre Fu of AFSO, hailed by Vogue magazine as a ‘Design Wunderkind.’ Later you’ll snuggle under the covers in one of the hotel’s 117 spacious guest rooms, notable for natural timber, shoji glass, limestone and lacquered paper panels. For now, you’ll want to freshen up in the spacious bathroom with a walk-in rain shower and breathtaking panoramic harbor or island views.
7:30 pm Board the Aqua Luna daily 45-minute sailings (between 11:30 am to 1:45 pm and 5:30 pm to 10:45 pm) on one of the last Chinese traditional sail boats, known as junks, to be handcrafted by an 80-year-old local craftsman. The 92-foot-high traditional red sail boat is named after an infamous pirate who once terrorized these waters. Take in the Symphony of Lights at 8 pm sharp when a Guinness record breaking sound and lights display turns Hong Kong’s urban jungle into a futuristic beauty pageant for 15 electrifying minutes starring its waterfront skyscrapers, emceed in Mandarin Chinese.
9:00 pm Cepage (23 Wing Fung Street, Wanchai, Hong Kong) restaurant is named for the 2,000 plus top tier wine collection. Chef Thomas Mayr is making his name with the Pyrenean milk-fed lamb rack with eggplant caviar and roasted pearl onions in a cherry tomato confit and char-grilled Kagoshima beef sirloin with sweet corn and potatoes.
11:00 pm Call it a night at The Upper House on Level 49 under the 40-meter-high skylight. Take a seat on one of the green tea or mineral blue ultra plush sofas for a chill night of conversation over nightcaps.
Day Two:
9:00 am Head back up to the 49th floor for breakfast at Café Gray Deluxe which overlooks Victoria Harbour. Its 14-meter-long open kitchen serves a broad range of dishes with an accent on local organic produce.
11:00 am Check out the newly chic Causeway Bay neighbourhood, where style and bargains abound in equal measure. At Cat Products (Shop 12A, Apple Mall, 15 Hysan Road, Causeway Bay), owner Eva Lau offers her own inventive designs but will happily take the bag off your shoulder and remodel it into something new. An innovative favourite among local trendsetters, Delay No Mall (68 Yee Wo Street, Causeway Bay) squeezes the cutting edge over three ever-changing floors of clothing from cult designers plus essential accessories from frothy cappuccino to glitzy diamonds. The same irreverent innovators started G.O.D. where Hong Kong goes to find quirky kitchen items and wacky wallets (Sharp Street East).
1:00 pm Anyone can go for dim sum but SML (11/F, Times Square, Causeway Bay) offers absolutely everything on the menu -- from the soups and salads to desserts and drinks -- in three sizes: a tapas plate to devour alone, medium to split with a friend, or large... definitely for sharing.
3:00 pm Alas it is now once again time to fly. Grab a cab for the Airport Express at IFC Building in Central. City check-in makes for a smooth ride back to the airport, bound for home sweet home.