Hong Kong's culture is a negotiation between its Cantonese heritage (opera, tea houses, Taoist temples), its British colonial past (the legalistic culture, the cricket club, the English-language press) and its position as Asia's art market capital. The M+ (2021) is the finest new art museum built anywhere in the decade.
Herzog & de Meuron's 2021 museum is the finest new museum built in Asia this century — 33,000 sq m of visual culture, design, architecture and the moving image. The Sigg Collection (the most important private collection of Chinese contemporary art) and the Hong Kong architecture collection are the centrepieces.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe M+ café or the West Kowloon Cultural District's waterfront restaurants — excellent harbour views and good food.
The Man Mo Temple (1847, dedicated to Man (civil) and Mo (martial) — the twin deities of scholars and warriors) is the most atmospheric temple in Hong Kong Island. The surrounding Hollywood Road antique shops have been selling Chinese antiques since the 1920s.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Yau Ma Tei Theatre (restored 1930 cinema) hosts Cantonese opera performances most evenings — the most theatrical of all Chinese opera forms, with elaborate costumes and the extraordinary singing technique (the audience is expected to eat, drink and talk during the performance).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideKnutsford Terrace (Tsim Sha Tsui) is the most pleasant bar street in Kowloon — outdoor seating, restaurants and bars in a pedestrianised alley. Or: Lan Kwai Fong (LKF, Central) for the largest concentration of bars in Hong Kong Island.
The world's highest bar (118th floor, 490m) in the International Commerce Centre — extraordinary panoramic view of Hong Kong at night. Expensive but incomparable.
The finest museum in Hong Kong — the 8-gallery permanent exhibition from prehistoric Hong Kong (6,000 years ago) through the colonial period (1842–1997) to the handover. Free entry since 2021.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideJordan's Woosung Street has excellent wonton noodle soup (HKD 40) and clay pot rice. The local lunch culture is the most authentically Hong Kong experience.
500 steps up the hillside in Sha Tin (New Territories, 30 min MTR) lined with 400 life-size golden arhat statues, leading to a monastery courtyard with 12,000 Buddha images. One of the most extraordinary religious sites in East Asia.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideWing Wah Noodle Shop (Mongkok) for the finest wonton noodle soup in Hong Kong — the broth is made from shrimp roe and pork bones, the wontons hand-folded. HKD 55 for a bowl that a Michelin-star restaurant would charge ten times more for.
Tsim Sha Tsui and Mong Kok at 22:00 — the neon signs (being progressively removed but still extraordinary in Mong Kok's Nathan Road) are the last of the great Asian neon street culture. Walk from Jordan to Mongkok along Nathan Road.
The Peninsula Hong Kong (since 1928, the most famous colonial hotel in Asia) has a midnight lobby lounge — string quartet, silver tea service, the last remnant of the colonial afternoon tea tradition. A Negroni at 01:00 in the Peninsula is the correct Hong Kong finale.