Lessons from Hong Kong's fight against Shenzhen's dining pull

Hong Kong's push to recapture its dining flair is something Singapore's restaurants may soon have to emulate, with JB's options steadily gaining appeal.

- Bhavan Jaipragas

Isn't it frustrating when a visiting pundit saunters into your city, passes instant judgment on it and declares that it's slipping?

I say this as someone who, during my years in Hong Kong, gritted my teeth every time a journalist breezed through for a few days, churning out that same tired refrain: "Doomed, just another Chinese city, end of one country, two systems."

Yet on a recent short vacation in the city that I still regard as my second home, I found myself judging and assessing, trying to gauge how its food and beverage (F&B) scene is really doing.

Retail in Hong Kong is clearly suffering - mainland visitors are tightening their purse strings, and locals haven't been in a free-spending mood even as the city begins to emerge from the pall of the past few years following the 2019 political crisis and extreme pandemic-era isolation.

But my real question is whether restaurants are truly in freefall. If the F&B scene is on life support, that speaks to something bigger about a city's pulse.

Dining out isn't just about food - it's about foot traffic, nightlife and the buzz that keeps an urban centre alive. If fewer people are going out, Hong Kong risks losing the intangible spark that sets it apart from other metropolises.

So, as I soaked up the cool 16-degree days, tackled hiking trails, gobbled claypot rice with extra lup cheong (Chinese sausage), and savoured sublime siu mei (roast meats), I was conducting my own five-day survey.

On paper, the situation is dire. Figures released in November 2024 showed restaurant receipts for the first three quarters of the year fell 0.3 per cent in value and 2.9 per cent in volume, compared to the same period in 2023.

That's despite tourism numbers soaring from pandemic lows, suggesting something is off - the city should be closer to pre-coronavirus normality by now.

I learnt that neighbours were gobbling up Hong Kong's cheese.