Courtesy of a slick local hotel, a new audio walking guide immerses guests into one of Hong Kong’s most energetic locales.

Willem Molesworth and Ysabelle Cheung at their independent art gallery, Property Holdings Development Group. — Willem Molesworth and Ysabelle Cheung at their gallery, Property Holdings Development Group. (Courtesy of PHD Group)

Atop a nondescript commercial building on the edge of the Wan Chai neighborhood, I am being shown what one might describe as a speakeasy art gallery. “The only thing that’s off the record is our address,” says co-founder Willem Molesworth. Together with his London-born wife Ysabelle Cheung, the eloquent New Yorker opened Property Holdings Development Group in early 2022 as “an authentic expression of the cultural forces” in Hong Kong. The generic name is an ironic reference to the gallery’s origins as a private rooftop clubhouse set up in the 1970s by Cheung’s grandfather, a real estate developer. Rehabbed after years of neglect, the space’s stripped-back concrete walls and floors now serve as a canvas for showcasing the avant-garde work of East Asian artists such as Chan Ting, who transforms discarded objects with layers and construction plaster and green pigments.

PHD Group is one of eight neighborhood attractions featured in a new audio guide by The Hari Hong Kong (from US$256 per night), a stylish Wan Chai hotel that bears the stamp of British interior designer Tara Bernerd. The detailed narrations come with an unexpected personal touch: users can listen to Dr. Aron Harilela — the chairman and CEO of Harilela Hotels — talk about his family’s love of art and how that translates into the broader guest experience (artworks displayed in the hotel’s public spaces change every few months).

A Premium Corner King room at The Hari Hong Kong. (Courtesy of The Hari Hong Kong)

Lap cheong and duck liver sausage on glutinous rice at Keung Kee; Hennessy Road traffic. — *Left to right: Lap cheong* and duck liver sausage on glutinous rice at Keung Kee; Hennessy Road traffic. (Photo: James Louie (left); courtesy of The Hari Hong Kong)

Just down the street from The Hari is Keung Kee (G/F, 406 Lockhart Rd.). The family-run eatery started out in the fifties as a pushcart on Wan Chai’s Marsh Road; its nostalgic Cantonese comfort food hasn’t escaped the attention of Michelin Guide inspectors. The bestseller is a bowl of lap cheong and duck liver sausage with shiitake mushroom over glutinous rice, glazed in drippings and sweet soy sauce. I catch snippets of conversation from the diners huddled around the next table. “My mom used to work in Wan Chai and she often bought this for takeout on the way home,” recounts a young woman.

Notably, the tour includes the gritty Bowrington Road Market and Cooked Food Centre (21 Bowrington Rd.). In the upstairs dining area, halal-certified stall Wai Kee has long been popular for its mutton curry and succulent, crispy skinned roast duck. Limited seating means visitors will have to daap toi — the quintessentially Hong Kong practice of sharing tables with strangers in casual settings.

The Cantonese custom of “villain hitting” has been practiced for generations by Hongkongers. (Courtesy of The Hari Hong Kong)

I’m also steered beneath the nearby Canal Road Flyover, where a group of elderly women perform a voodoo-esque folk ritual known as villain hitting, in which a piece of paper bearing the name of the client’s target is placed on a brick and thwacked with an old plastic slipper. A mother and child sit patiently at a makeshift altar to Guanyin, the goddess of mercy.

I then head west along thronging Hennessy Road in search of the Foo Tak Building, a 1960s tenement block that has been largely transformed into a creative hub by the nonprofit Art & Culture Outreach. Sequestered 14 stories above the traffic, ACO’s office and bookstore adjoins a cozy lounge that hosts mini-exhibitions; shelves are stocked with wares from a local ceramicist and collections of sketches by Hong Kong illustrators. An antiquated elevator conveys me to the ACO-run gallery on the sixth floor, where I join a young expat family and some older Cantonese housewives in viewing a series of abstract paintings by local artist Meevi Choi. For this Hong Konger abroad, The Hari’s latest effort to acquaint its guests with the peculiarities of Wan Chai — a place brimming with countless memories of my own — is something I can gladly get behind.

The unassuming entrance to Foo Tak Building, a vertical creative hub. (Courtesy of The Hari Hong Kong)

This article originally appeared in the October/November 2024 print issue of DestinAsian magazine (“A Wander through Wan Chai”).

Getting Reacquainted with Wan Chai

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