Common Room

Hong Kong’s Common Room is where gastronomes and cocktail connoisseurs find common ground. This gastrobar is grounded, indeed, along Wo On Lane in Central, a block up D’Aguilar from Wellington Street – but you can probably find it just by listening out for the buzz of joyous happy hour tipplers and the throb of the house’s Funktion One soundsystem. The long bar area features an impressive liquor library, drawn upon by the resident mixologists to whip up some of the city’s best concoctions. As for the food, it’s tapas style, perfect for sharing, and of gold gourmet standard.

When you hunt down Common Room’s Wo On Lane premises, you’ll be immediately struck by the design of this stellar Central cocktail bar. Fitted out in a rustic and industrial chic style, the main bar area features a ten metre-long glass and cast iron liquor cabinet, a tantalus bejewelled with an arcane selection of boutique spirits. You can warm up one of the expert cocktail masters and order drinks mixed just the way you like them, or surrender to their expertise and allow them to mix you something to suit your mood. If you’re sitting down to share some food, you’ll find yourself at long wooden communal tables – the perfect way to share some gossip and get to know your neighbour. Outside, a terrace decked with reclaimed ship’s wood completes the picture: Common Room is a floating world of good food and drink in the heart of Hong Kong.

Let’s tackle Common Room’s forte, mixology, first. The carefully curated drinks list, while changed up regularly, features contemporary cocktails that are fruity, sweet, and sour, plus two columns of classics and modern inventions. The least fruity of the fruity has to be the Quinine Mary, a variation on the classic G&T with ground rosemary and homemade rosemary syrup – perfect for a hot Hong Kong night. Of the moderns, our pick is the lemongrass caipirinha, which simply blends lemongrass-infused cachaca rum with lemongrass syrup and muddled limes, giving a unique Southeast Asian twist to the Brazilian classic. As for the food, Common Ground’s small plates are divvied up into Earth, Sea, Land, and – your ultimate destination – Heaven. Try the vegetarian kale and pomegranate Caesar salad, the mixed seafood ceviche or the Madison lobster roll, the Wagyu foie gras sliders, and finish on cloud nine with the molecular-gastronomic cryo-fried vanilla ice cream, flambeed with brandy and raspberry sauce. Common Ground’s Central hideaway is creating a lot of buzz, so be sure to book.