Hotel Icon Kowloon is hitting the spot for our cameo appearances in Hong Kong...
So we’ve been hanging around Hong Kong Island on and off for the last year – which was the more or less blatant ulterior motive for launching Honeycombers Hong Kong in one of Asia’s coolest cities in the first place. But for all the hot Wan Chai cocktail spots and cool Sheung Wan cafes, there’s something missing… let’s call it the grit, the pulse, the crush. The dark side.
We speak of course of Kowloon, and moreover of a recent stay at Hotel Icon, which rises up from the thick of Tsim Sha Tsui with an air of poised and modern luxury.
Outside, Science Museum Road is like a banquet table groaning with an overabundance of food (the good, glistening stuff), the nearby Nathan, Austin and Observatory Roads, and all the electric sign-filled laneways between them are crowded with shopping and yet more food.
Inside, an elegant respite. That very now mix of business and understated luxury: sleek design, plush interiors, top shelf facilities, sumptuous dining.
Ah, the dining. Above & Beyond is Hotel Icon’s restaurant in the clouds, serving what you want to call a sort of elevated, royal, or perhaps imperial Cantonese cuisine. At once rich and decadent and yet somehow delicate. See the bowl of lobster morsels shimmering in their own jus, atop springy egg whites flecked with black truffle shavings and greenery. Or the miracle of a crispy chicken, the secret to which I’m told is that the chef douses the bird in scalding oil more than 100 times to render the skin golden and almost shatterable while the meat remains moist and meaty.
The meal alone is worth staying for – indeed, worth travelling for. Not least with its epic views across the Harbour to the lights and the skyline of the Island, where one imagines a legion of travellers enjoying their less gritty stay, their pandan Negronis and single origin pour-overs, but where – to say the very least – they are are certainly not enjoying iconic views of Hong Kong Island.
Hotel Icon, 17 Science Museum Road, Tsim Sha Tsui East, Kowloon, Hong Kong
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