Hong Kong’s most celebrated bartender, Antonio Lai is the co-owner of Tastings Group, which operates a series of much loved bars and restaurant in the city. They include Quinary and The Envoy, both of which have featured in the Asia’s 50 Best Bars list, alongside the group’s former gin focused bar Origin, with Quinary also making the World’s 50 Best Bars on multiple occasions.

The group also runs fusion restaurant and bar Vea, which has a Michelin star, and its star chef Vicky Cheng’s Chinese restaurant Wing, as well as Room 309, a hidden bar in The Pottinger Hong Kong hotel, and Draft Land, which offers cocktails on draught. In 2022 the company also launched tea based canned cocktail Chako.

Lai started his career in 1997 at Planet Hollywood and then joined Drop bar, after which he worked in the coffee market for a while, including as a trainer for the Jackie Chan’s Cafe chain. He has been a bar consultant and mixologist since 2011, practising what he refers to as multisensory mixology, inspired by the work of Italy’s godfather of molecular mixology Dario Comini. The winner of numerous mixology competitions—which despite all his success, he still enters to this day to keep his skills fresh—Lai is also in demand as a speaker and consultant, and is the author of two books on multisensory cocktails.