A 3-day Hong Kong itinerary for art and food lovers

One thing to know about me as a traveler: I love cities. I love how people move through them, fast and focused; how there is so much unfinished business, all of it full of possibility. I can do a proper fly-and-flop when I really need to, but offered the choice between a beach and an urban center, I’ll take the hustle of organized chaos almost every time. Another thing to know about me: I’d rather get to know people and a destination through art and food than just about any other way. 

So when I was invited, along with a group of journalists, to experience Art March Hong Kong, a month-long celebration of culture in March capped by the Art Central and Art Basel fairs, plus just a taste of the city’s many standout drinking and dining spots, I only asked how quickly Cathay Pacific’s nonstop flight from New York could get me there. The answer was 16 hours of flight time, punctuated by tasty treats from the airline’s “Hong Kong Flavours” all-day dining menu, including a wonton noodle soup so good I’d fly back just for it.

The day-to-night culture-and-cuisine pairings were a dream setup for anyone who lives to travel for Art! Food! Cocktails! Cities! And the best part is that there’s so much art to see, so many bites to eat, and so many cocktails to drink in the city year-round. No matter when you visit, use this 3-day itinerary to discover the best art and food in Hong Kong.

Day 1: West Kowloon by day, drinks with a view by night

Spend your morning at M+, located at the heart of the West Kowloon Cultural District (WestK). The museum is Hong Kong’s answer to the Tate Modern and MoMA, exhibiting permanent and rotating collections of 20th- and 21st-century art, design and film from Hong Kong, mainland China, Asia, and beyond. If M+ teaches us anything, it’s that art is meant to be enjoyed not just by cultural elites but by everyone. The 33 galleries and event spaces are housed in a harborfront building the size of nine football pitches with a roof garden designed by Herzog & de Meuron, the powerhouse firm responsible for the “Bird’s Nest” National Stadium built for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. It’s got a just-wander-in-from-the-street vibe, which extends to its democratic ticket policy: free admission to the ground and lower-floor spaces. The museum’s holistic, welcoming approach, its engaging director, incredible exhibitions and that view from the outdoor terrace: all aces, no notes.

Another thing M+ has going for it is AGATE, its restaurant that opened in November 2025. The Cantonese lunch was so good that most of my thoughts are memorialized in the indecipherable scribblings of a very sated diner: carrot thing! sesame rollllllll! chicken! And the waitstaff mirrors the ethos of the museum – warm and welcoming.

After lunch, take a leisurely stroll through the West Kowloon Art Park to the Hong Kong Palace Museum, a collaborative project with the Palace Museum in Beijing dedicated, first, to the appreciation of Chinese art and, second, to hosting major museum shows from around the world. Many of the nearly 1000 objects from mainland China have never been exhibited publicly before. HKPM is worth visiting for a peek into the vast collection of ceramics on loan from Beijing alone, and its immersive digital experience is especially fun for kids.

Stay in Kowloon for drinks and dinner. Make your way to Kimpton Tsim Sha Tsui, the largest Kimpton in the world, built on the site of the Mariners Club, which still takes up the first eight floors. Begin high in the sky over cocktails at Swim Club, an indoor-outdoor poolside rooftop bar that looks straight out of Apple TV's Palm Royale: all pink and blue and cheerful and glam. It’s a great spot to take in A Symphony of Lights, Hong Kong’s nightly harborside light-and-sound show (off).

Take the elevator down to JIJA, the latest restaurant by Vicky Lau, founder of the two-Michelin-starred TATE Dining Room in the Central District. Here she serves upscale Yunnan and Guizhou cuisine, marked by sour-spicy flavors, in a dark, moody-in-the-best-way vibe evoking a modern teahouse. The lime shredded chicken, sweet corn soup, and steamed snapper are all worth indulging in.

Day 2: Gallery-hopping and street art in Central, followed by filthy martinis

In Hong Kong, urban spaces everywhere contain, contrast and explode with diverse architecture, people and purpose. And nowhere in the city is that more Jenga’d into daily life than in the Central District (usually referred to as just "Central" locally). Dozens of blue-chip international galleries, studio spaces and museums are scattered about, just waiting to be discovered when you turn a corner.

Check out the Hong Kong Art Gallery Association’s online guide for what’s on where or, better yet, pick up its printed version – a map-as-objet so pretty you’ll keep it as a souvenir – at any of its member venues. Don’t miss Alisan Fine Arts, Hong Kong’s longest-running contemporary gallery, known for celebrating pioneering artists and making traditional forms feel anything but staid. Be sure to plan your final stop near Jardine House on Connaught Place for BaseHall 02, a food hall featuring a never-ending mix of Michelin-recommended restaurants, hot concepts, emerging chefs and innovative cocktails.

For more than a decade, HKWALLS Street Art Festival has sponsored a slate of local and international artists to paint murals across Central and Sheung Wan. And while the main events happen in March, the walls themselves keep on talking for as long as the paint remains. You can check out maps from all 11 festivals to plot your course through some seriously thoughtful and fun public art spaces, or book a 90-minute curator-led tour that starts and finishes at creative hub PMQ on Aberdeen Street.

Traversing Central from morning through afternoon makes me thirsty. Usually, a reductive “Best Of” list makes me want to run in the other direction, but Bar Leone, ranked number one on the World’s 50 Best Bars, is the exception. Founded by Roman Lorenzo Antinori, I can confidently declare it is perfect, though my night got blurry as the filthy martinis kept arriving. Cherrywood-smoked olives are now my whole personality. Arrive early and share the mortadella sandwiches.

Then it's time to stagger in a semi-euphoric state along Staunton Street to dinner at Peng Leng Jeng, wok hei master Chef ArChan Chan’s insanely good homage – in neon vibe and in food – to the city’s fading dai pai dongs. Cantonese slang for “beautiful, fast, cheap,” it is where I discovered that beer might be best served in a bowl. Especially if that bowl of cold beer is lifted from a table crowded with knock-you-out goodies like Chinese-style egg custard with clams, oyster omelette, beef in honey sauce, and pork lard rice with sweet soy sauce.

Day 3: Art and commerce…and chicken

First stop: Sotheby’s Maison, the Asian flagship of the nearly 300-year-old auction house, located in the Landmark complex, a series of connected buildings forming a luxury campus that includes the Mandarin Oriental and boutiques for the crazy rich. Sotheby’s feels very much of its retail environs: highly visible and shoppable. The 24,000-square-foot space, designed by Rotterdam-based studio MVRDV, presents two different ways to approach art objects. Upstairs is all light and air, with galleries you hardly realize you’re walking into and out of because it happens so fluidly. The lower level is dark and dramatic, serious but not somber. The two spaces are connected by a wooden staircase corridor, so layered that it has an ancient/nature feel. Regardless of your budget, the space itself is worth the walk-through.

From there, it's about a 10-minute walk to Tai Kwun, the former Central Police Station Compound turned culture center, whose eight-year, 3.8 billion Hong Kong dollar (HK$) revitalization in the aughts earned its flowers from critics around the world, including a UNESCO award for conservation. You’ll discover galleries, studios, and shops in the easiest, breeziest, prettiest public square.

You’ll also find Madame Fù Grand Café Chinois, where you are likely to feel that sensation so many of us chase when traveling: that we are our best selves and that we belong here. Located on the third floor of the old police headquarters, Madame Fù is gorgeous. Whether you dine al fresco on the veranda or in one of the six beautifully decorated dining rooms, there are no bad seats in this house. Oh, and the contemporary Chinese menu is also a winner, with a focus on making each dish – especially the ones you’re likely to see on most Hong Kong menus, like dim sum selections and fried rice – feel special. If the mysterious, fictional Madame Fù were a real person, I hope she’d be my friend. My best friend.

Walk your happy self the 20 minutes or so it takes to get to The Henderson, Dame Zaha Hadid’s 2024 status symbol skyscraper, which houses Christie’s, Audemars Piguet, Carlyle, and other luxury brands for the 1%. It’s also home to hangout spots including Hana No Kumo, a 12-seat omakase restaurant, and the sprawling, rooftop event space Cloud 39. I write this and promise it’s not hyperbolic: The Henderson is extraordinary in every way. And, much like the city it’s in, it welcomes everyone for a visit, not just the people who move and shake the financial world.

Take the elevator to the 38th floor to behold the I-almost-passed-out-when-I-entered bar, Peridot. Designed by Studio Paolo Ferrari, the dreamscape space, done top to bottom in shades of the gem it’s named after, feels like an exploded disco ball: resplendent and seductive, where superb lighting and design flirt. The plant-forward cocktail and snack menus come from former Peninsula head mixologist François Cavelier and Noma veteran Lisandro Illa, respectively.

Stay for a drink and a bite, but try your hardest to resist Peridot’s charms and, instead, head to Yardbird for dinner, a 5-minute taxi ride or 20-minute walk from The Henderson. Fowl is so, so fair at this Michelin-starred Japanese izakaya in Central, where chicken is the featured player. I cannot stop thinking about this place. The menu reads like an anatomy class: thyroid, Achilles, rib, neck, knee, bicep. Make sure to order the skin, a sampling of whatever else strikes you in the moment, and at least two sides to share: the mushrooms and the cukes were my favorites. Yardbird is worth crossing every road for.

Finishing a three-day art and food exploration of Hong Kong at a chicken-only joint feels on the money. The cross-cultural staple bird might be the epitome of contrast dining: it can be served high or low, elevated or humble. It delivers on so many levels. Much like Hong Kong.

Melinda Anderson traveled to Hong Kong on the invitation of the Hong Kong Tourism Board. Lonely Planet does not accept freebies in exchange for positive coverage.