Duddell’s

Duddell’s has always understood that a restaurant in Central needs to do more than cook well. It needs to feel alive. The room—part dining destination, part social salon—still buzzes with that Hong Kong energy: business lunches that run long, friends gathering over dim sum, cocktails drifting into dinner. The kitchen leans confidently into Cantonese classics that reward careful technique. The crispy local fried chicken shows how much patience good Cantonese cooking demands. The bird is marinated for hours, air-dried, then “hang-fried” with hot oil poured repeatedly over the skin until it shatters at the first bite. For something quieter but equally revealing, the poached geoduck in fish rice broth offers a gentler side of the kitchen: sweet slices of clam in a delicate broth that speaks to the Cantonese belief that the best flavours often come from restraint. The result is a restaurant that works as both a social hub and a serious kitchen, which is not an easy balance to strike.

Tatler Tip

Look out for the roast goose pie with plum sauce, a flaky baked pastry filled with roast goose that insiders insist on ordering whenever it appears.