Arbor — Hong Kong, China

The bar at Arbor Hong Kong designed by Yabu Pushelberg
(Image credit: Virgile Simon Bertrand)

Hong Kong’s gastronomic scene heaves with a level of brio and creativity that is entirely disproportionate to its size. And yet, every day, new restaurants are added to the city’s diet-averse roster, the latest – Arbor – literally staking the high ground on the 25th floor of CL3 Architects’ silvery stack, H Queen’s.

The conceit of the restaurant is that diners are arriving at the home of a poet and a cook, though judging by Yabu Pushelberg’s interiors, these are deep-pocketed creatives. Riffing off the botanical moniker, the designers worked with a palette of cream, sage, teal and splashes of blush, whilst wrapping the private dining room with a Fragonard-ish mural of trees, and adding customised oak and leather furniture to anchor the high-ceilinged main room.

Chef de cuisine Eric Räty (the former head chef at Chez Dominique) hitches his Finnish background to a seasonal French menu cooked with Japanese ingredients. The cross-border pollination results in visually arresting dishes such as torched Icelandic langoustine paired with tomato and crushed candy, alongside equally inventive desserts like a soy milk ice cream that’s cocooned in sheets of crispy yuba with a salted egg yolk, pieces of white chocolate and black beans dipped in soy sauce.

The entrance at Arbor Hong Kong designed by Yabu Pushelberg

(Image credit: Virgile Simon Bertrand)

The bar at Arbor Hong Kong designed by Yabu Pushelberg

(Image credit: Virgile Simon Bertrand)

The dining room at Arbor Hong Kong designed by Yabu Pushelberg

(Image credit: Virgile Simon Bertrand)

INFORMATION
Website

ADDRESS

25/F H Queen’s 80
Queen's Road Central

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

PHOTOGRAPHY
Virgile Simon Bertrand

Daven Wu is the Singapore Editor at Wallpaper*. A former corporate lawyer, he has been covering Singapore and the neighbouring South-East Asian region since 1999, writing extensively about architecture, design, and travel for both the magazine and website. He is also the City Editor for the Phaidon Wallpaper* City Guide to Singapore.