A look back at 40 years of the Tatler Dining Guide

As Hongkongers began reacquainting themselves with mainland China, the 2000 edition featured a concise guide to restaurants in Shenzhen, from an Islamic restaurant operated by Chinese Muslims from Qinghai, to a “vast, ostentatious” Chiu Chow restaurant featuring a “quasi-erotic” theme, where an in-house troupe of female dancers would discard their garments on an extendable stage in the bar room. Writes Roger Cave: “Hong Kong gourmets who cross the bridge to sample the authentic regional cuisine visit for one principal reason: cost. Prices are considerably lower than in Hong Kong. Little English is spoken, but, for the most part, the welcome is warm.” Clearly, some things just never change.

Frequently found in the editions published in the ‘90s through to the 2010s are quaint maps of key dining districts like Central, Wan Chai and Tsim Sha Tsui—remember, this was a period before Google Maps—as well as coupons in the back of each book that you could cut out and present on your next meal out for a modest discount. The restaurant details for each venue also reflect the social mores at the time, detailing whether the establishment uses MSG in their cooking and, up until the mid-2000s, whether cigars or pipes were allowed in the dining area. And, before the advent of search engines, a glossary of food terms was de rigeur, listing out the meaning of everything from mi krob (Thai crispy noodles) to mulligatawny (Indian spicy bean soup).

It’s heartening, too, to reach back through the years and find the leaders of our F&B scene today just getting their start in our pages. In 2010, a feature on the advent of molecular mixology detailed the penchant of Antonio Lai, then-resident barman of Nordic restaurant FINDS, for using artificial, berry-flavoured caviar and Earl Grey foam in his cocktails—Lai would combine these techniques in the Earl Grey Caviar Martini when he opened Quinary in 2012. In the same edition, Gregoire Michaud, then the pastry chef at Four Seasons, peeks out from an advertorial on Mövenpick ice cream. Today, of course, he runs a successful pastry empire in the form of Bakehouse.

Which restaurants will still be featured in the Tatler Dining Guide of 2064, and what might readers of the future find charming about how we were dining out in 2024? Right now, it’s anyone’s guess—but as long as people still find comfort in dining out, and Hong Kong is still able to provide the cornucopia of cuisines that it is famed for, we’ll still keep on eating, drinking, writing about it all, and finding only the best for you to experience. Here’s to another four decades of the Tatler Dining Guide!

Purchase the Tatler Dining Guide Hong Kong & Macau 2024 edition online here