The culinary soirée of the year once again brought the dining industry's brightest and most talented together in one space
Nicolas Boutin with Hideaki Sato, both Top 20 Best Restaurant awardees
The Top 20 Best Restaurant awardees
Cedric Jacob and Agustin Balbi
This year's Best New Chef, Xavier Boyer of Gaddi's
Cedric Jacob, Xavier Boyer and Fabrice Vulin
Nicolas Boutin
Another year, another Hong Kong Tatler Best Restaurants awards night complete. It's extraordinary to think back to Tatler Towers four years ago, when the seed of an idea for a party bringing together Hong Kong and Macau's dining scene was only starting to germinate. The first year we launched was in 2013 for the guide's 30th anniversary, when we held an intimate Christmas-themed celebration in the newly-opened Duddell's with around 150 guests—among them, a stellar line-up of chefs and restaurateurs who turned up to receive their first-ever Hong Kong Tatler Best Restaurants trophies.
The second year, we upped the ante with an even larger event at hot new opening Mott 32, the vast underground space allowing us to host even more F&B friends—more than 250 of them, in fact. Soon, it was time for the third awards night which brought the party to the shores of Repulse Bay, at The Ocean. It proved to be our biggest event to date, despite the farflung location: over 350 revelers joined our soirée to celebrate the best of the best, including the legendary Pierre Gagnaire himself.
One must always go one better, and the bar will always be raised: and this year we were thrilled to host the fourth annual Best Restaurant awards night at The Seafood Room in Causeway Bay, one of 2016's hottest new openings with a superlative view over Hong Kong's iconic harbour. In the end, close to 500 guests made it to celebrate the guide with us, creating a vibe unlike that we had experienced before.
We've always felt that the awards night was more than just an event to launch our book—rather, it is an opportunity to truly bring people together and celebrate all that is great about our local food scene. For many chefs, it is a great time to catch up with their peers in the industry—to get out of the kitchens for the night (or at least for a few hours) and toast to the year's achievements. I'm happy to say that we achieved just that, and for the 2018 edition it can only get better.
Watch the video below to see highlights from this year's awards night:
Videography by Tyrone Wu (Hong Kong Tatler)
With special thanks to The Seafood Room, Laurent-Perrier, S.Pellegrino and Acqua Panna, Peroni and LiTV.
See all past Best Restaurants guide awards coverage here and more on #HKTBRG2017: