Eat Like A Local is a series by @HungryEditor profiling people on their eating habits—everything from their favorite restaurants and bars to where they grocery shop, and sometimes even their go-to takeout order.
Danica Lo in Hong Kong
Danica Lo is an author and the Chief Content Officer at Tatler Asia. Lo previously held senior positions at Food & Wine, WWD, Glamour, Epicurious, and Racked. Before all of that she was a plus-size model signed with Wilhelmina. Lo was born in the U.K., grew up in New York, and went to Dartmouth for college. She returned to the U.K. for graduate school and received master's degrees at both Oxford and Central Saint Martins. You can find her on Instagram: @DanicaLo.
Benjamin Liong Setiawan: What were some of the key steps that led you to where you are today?
Danica Lo: I started my career as a fashion newspaper journalist before going fully digital a decade ago. Since then, I've worked in fashion and food editorial at major multinational media companies as well as small Silicon Valley startups. Along the way, I published a book with HarperCollins and was signed to Wilhelmina Models' plus-size division. Earlier this year, I moved to Hong Kong to join the Tatler Asia team—I'm excited to spend time here learning about the media industry and the Asia luxury market.
I'm a workaholic, so I feel very lucky that I love what I do. To be completely honest, my favorite thing about my job as Chief Content Officer at Tatler Asia is working with the team to ideate and create useful and entertaining content to surprise and delight our readers—whether we're dissecting the complications of Patek Philippe's latest release, touting the best chefs to know and restaurants to try, or telling inspirational and powerful stories about the motivational forces behind Asia's most influential leaders and social powerhouses.
If available, Danica Lo recommends the Okinawa corn, Kristal Schrenki caviar, seawater, and sudashi ... [+] parfait at Amber at the Landmark Mandarin Oriental in Hong Kong.
Setiawan: What are your favorite restaurants in Hong Kong?
Lo: I'm new-ish to Hong Kong, so I still have a lot of exploring to do. So far, I've loved and returned to:
Already an iconic fine-dining destination since 2005, Amber relaunched this spring with a new modus operandi spearheaded by longtime Culinary Director Richard Ekkebus, who overhauled the restaurant's signature dégustation menus with a lighter, revamped, refreshing, modern approach—sans dairy and gluten. The hyper-seasonal offerings are always changing, but if you can catch Ekkebus' Okinawa corn, Kristal Schrenki caviar, seawater, and sudachi parfait, and the salad of teardrop peas, pomelo, cuttlefish, and wakame. Book a table early and often. I'm seriously considering moving into the Mandarin Oriental just so I can live closer to Amber.
The first Punjabi restaurant in the world to receive a Michelin star is situated in the heart of Hong Kong. Owned and operated the Black Sheep Restaurants group—which also owns hotspots including Ho Lee Fook, the Buenos Aires Polo Club, and the H.K. outpost of Carbone—the New Punjab Club is an artful, immersive, transporting, cinematic experience in the guise of a newfangled tandoor grillhouse. Make sure to order the lamb, the samosa chaat, and the cobia. I'd pay almost anything for a tray of the New Punjab Club's anwar rathore mangoes—they're specially cultivated on a farm in Pakistan that's owned by Black Sheep Restaurants' founder. And you must end your meal with the restaurant's signature sticky toffee pudding. Trust me.
Old Bailey is an airy, modern restaurant designed by Herzog & de Meuron and tucked into a second-floor corner inside the JC Contemporary gallery space, which is in turn situated in Tai Kwun, a former police compound in Central Hong Kong. I'm a huge fan of Old Bailey's all-you-can-eat brunch, which features endless house-made kombucha, xiaolongbao, Jiangnan dim sum and other dishes delivered directly to your table. The Bloody Marys are also excellent—along with the overall cocktail program in general.
Yardbird is casual, crowded, loud, and doesn't take reservations—so arrive early to snag a table and load up on the fantastic appetizers and medium plates (I like the chicken skewers, but the real star of the show here are the starters). Yardbird menu items I crave and daydream about: seared yellowtail served with yuzu koshu, ponzu, and radish salad; sweet corn tempura; the fried chicken with garlic kewpie mayo and lemon; and all the pickles—cucumber and ginger; kimchi, napa cabbage, and carrots; daikon and red shiso; and fennel with yuzu, which is simple, surprising, and perfect.
Hot pot is fairly easy to come by in Hong Kong, but if you're looking for something extra-special, Hot Pot Hero is in a league of its own. Go with a group and order the restaurant's signature fish head and green Sichuan peppercorn soup base (trust me)—then go crazy on the a la carte meat, fish, dumplings, and vegetables menu.
If you're traveling with kids, or are an immature adult (like me), Yum Cha is a can't-miss lunch spot with locations in both Central and Tsim Sha Tsui that offers dozens of different types of buns, dumplings, savory pastries, and other dim sum shaped like cute little googly-eyed animals. Yum Cha is the place you've seen all over social media where they serve those hot custard steamed buns that you poke your chopstick into and squish so they look like they're barfing. Do it for the 'gram.
Danica Lo loves the playful dim sum at Yum Cha in Hong Kong.
Setiawan: If someone was visiting your area and they wanted to eat or drink like a local, which places would you recommend?
Lo: Visit a traditional Hong Kong cha chaan teng for breakfast: Jet lagged, awake, and unreasonably hungry early in the morning? Visit a Hong Kong-style diner—such as Australia Dairy Company—for steamed rice rolls, macaroni and Spam, and a freshly-baked pineapple bun butter sandwich.
Ogle and buy an enormous variety of fruit: Overnight, the Yau Ma Tei Fruit Market is a wholesale hub for the food and restaurant industry, but during the day, some shops remain open to the public. This is where you can see and buy some of the best, freshest fruits in town—my favorite is the plump and juicy longan (dragon's eye).
Don't skip mall dining, because it's super-legit in H.K.: Luxury malls are everywhere in Hong Kong, and some of the city's best local restaurants and chain concepts are situated inside. Some of my favorites include: The Night Market, which serves a Taiwanese street-food-inspired menu at Elements Mall (get the beef noodle soup and the water spinach sautéed with fermented bean curd) and John Anthony, which serves a highbrow newfangled twist on Cantonese cooking, at Lee Garden (get the Australian Wagyu beef charsiu and the signature goose, which is dark-roasted in purple plum sauce and served with pickled cucumbers).
Check out local restaurants in residential neighborhoods: Take a mid-day trip to Repulse Bay, one of the most expensive residential neighborhoods on Hong Kong Island, and check out the restaurant-packed beachside promenade. Limewood there is a great lunch spot—the menu is packed with fresh seafood offerings, so make sure to order a plate of calamari, but whatever you do, don't miss the 48-hour charred beef ribs, which are marinated in a mango-infused barbecue sauce and topped with toasted sesame seeds and cilantro.
Early morning mountainside dim sum: Hiking is a very big thing in Hong Kong—and after a long trek up a steep mountain trail, what could be better than heaping servings of dim sum. Duen Kee Chinese Restaurant opens early, at 6 a.m., and stays open only through mid-day—serving up traditional small plates to fuel your climb.
Danica Lo suggests checking out some of the residential neighborhoods on Hong Kong Island such as ... [+] Repulse Bay. Limewood is on the beachside promenade and has hand-piped churros.
Setiawan: What are your favorite restaurants around the globe?
Lo: This is an extremely difficult question to answer, but here are five restaurants I think about going back to all the time:
There's nowhere I'd rather be in the summertime than by the sea—and Brighton is one of my favorite seaside towns in the world, so I try to get there at least once a year. I try to make my first meal in Brighton a hot kipper sandwich under the arches, beachfront. But my second meal is usually a late lunch at Riddle & Finns in The Lanes—the seafood is fresh and flavorful and the cooking is refined but unpretentious. I always order way too much—get the razor clams if you're lucky and find they're on the menu, then a fruits de mer platter of shellfish to tear into with your hands, and you'll never go wrong with their rich and savory fish soup.
90 Huanghe Rd., Huangpu Qu, Shanghai Shi, China, +86 21 6327 6878
My Shanghai jet lag morning ritual is: Wake up at 4 a.m. because I can't sleep anymore, pull on stretchy pants and wait until 6 a.m. when Yang's Fried Dumplings opens, and score some sheng jian bao (pan-fried bao) as a starter there while I wait for Jia Jia Tang Bao to open, at 7 a.m., across the street. You'll know exactly where it is because there'll be a long queue out the door. The menu isn't in English, so just order a dié (steam basket) of everything that looks good on someone else's table—the ultra-thin and delicate xiaolongbao dough here is a textural pleasure to eat, and the scalding soup and meat-and-veg fillings are fragrant and filling.
My favorite restaurant in New York City for a year now has been The Beatrice Inn, where chef-owner Angie Mar rules the roost. The space and vibe are classic downtown—in the most unpretentious, dgaf, hedonistic way possible—and Mar's menu is a carnivore's manifesto. Get one of everything—especially don't skip the fire duck or the porterhouse. Oh, and save room for dessert—the cheesecake is killer good.
Roast Duck Flambé at Angie Mar's The Beatrice Inn in New York is a must says Danica Lo.
I went through a phase when I spent a lot of summers in between 2003 and 2016 visiting Helsinki. My friends there eventually became vegans and I gradually stopped going—unclear if those two things are related, but ever since my first trip to Finland, I've been obsessed with Seahorse, an old-school traditional Finnish restaurant that serves some of my favorite meatballs, brown sauce, mashed potatoes, and beets in the world.
One of the biggest problems I have when visiting L.A. is that I like staying in Malibu (at the Surfrider) or at Chateau (Marmont) in West Hollywood, but I prefer dining in other, far away neighborhoods—especially downtown, and especially at Majordomo, which I think is Dave Chang's best restaurant. The one tip I have for anyone going to Majordomo for the first time is to go with a group of, like, six people, so you can order more stuff. The first time I went, one friend came with me, and we almost died. Anyway, next time I go, I'm definitely ordering the crispy rice, the boiled whole chicken, the macaroni and chickpea, and a broad selection from the bing menu. Again.
Danica Lo is a fan of the Macaroni & Chickpea with Hozon and black truffle at Majordomo by David ... [+] Chang in Los Angeles.
Setiawan: Tell us about your job as the Chief Content Officer at Tatler Asia.
Lo: As the Chief Content Officer at Tatler Asia, I oversee editorial across eight editions of Tatler: Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand.
Setiawan: What's your vision for Tatler Asia?
Lo: There's so much existing talent, passion, and literacy around luxury lifestyle—fashion, beauty, wellness, travel, home, cars—as well as integrity and ambition in innovation, technology, and thought leadership here in Asia that I believe it's a natural and logical next step that we would be able to be part of a global paradigm shift, where Tatler as a brand can help shine a spotlight on Asia's most influential—the amazing stories, the strength of the community, and the ideas that will shape not only Asia, but the world, in the next hundred, thousand years.
Setiawan: If you could have a dinner party with any group of people, past or present, who would your five guests be?
Lo: Ten years ago, Andy Wang and I started an informal dinner party series that we called Chinese Food Fight Club. The idea was that we'd get a big round table at Legend, our favorite neighborhood Sichuan restaurant at the time, and Andy would invite half the guests—mostly from the luxury real estate and food worlds—and I'd invite the other half of the guests—mostly from the fashion and lifestyle media space. Chinese Food Fight Club went on, irregularly, for about seven years. They were my favorite dinner parties, ever, and what I learned from co-hosting them was that the food doesn't have to be fancy and the guests don't have to be famous—in fact, it's better when you invite brilliant, diverse, thoughtful, hilarious people who aren't afraid of eating unfamiliar things. Here are some names I'd like to see sit around a table together:
Maria Yagoda, Food & Wine's restaurant editor and, also, a former sex columnist at Vice: Maria was one of my first real hires when I was at F&W and still one of my favorite writers. She's brilliant and funny and has a very unpretentious, naturally curious way of looking at the world. She's also one of those people who is eminently likable—despite claiming to be an introvert, she's great under all social circumstances and knows how to wheedle the best conversations out of everyone around her.
Andrew Doyle, comedian, political commentator, and the man behind fake "woke" internet personality Titania McGrath: Andrew and I lived next door to each other during grad school. He spent a lot of time at Oxford holed up in Duke Humphrey's Library translating old Latin texts by hand (because you weren't allowed to bring anything besides a pencil and a sheet of paper into Duke Humphrey's). These days, he does everything I wish I was good at: He's a standup comedian, a successful playwright, a political commentator on news television shows, and, last year, he invented Titania McGrath, a faux-woke parody account on Twitter that has accrued more than 300,000 followers…and a book deal.
Logan Paul, YouTube star: Logan Paul is the only person on my dinner party guest list who I've never met—he's young, brash, bold, outspoken, popular, and rich. He's got a larger-than-life YouTube personality, and I suspect he's… a lot smarter than he lets on? Mostly I'm just curious to meet him—and see how he is in real life, in conversation with a diverse group of minds from different backgrounds than his usual video crew.
Joe Brown, Editor-in-Chief of Popular Science: Joe and I crossed paths briefly at Conde Nast—when he was at Wired and I was at Epicurious. We worked together a little bit on some larger corporate-wide digital initiatives and I found him to be one of the smartest, coolest editors I've ever met—super-collaborative, full of great ideas—and I just selfishly want to hang out with him, introduce him to other people so I can brag that I know the editor of PopSci, and ask him what games he's playing on his iPhone and stuff.
Louise Wilson, who passed away in in 2014, the former head of the MA Fashion program at Central Saint Martins: Louise Wilson is and was one of the most influential forces in the fashion industry—I would do anything to have the privilege to be in her presence again…and to listen to her speak her mind and tell people off in only the way Louise could.
Setiawan: If someone at that dinner party asked the question—what is an area of brokenness you'd like to see addressed—what would your answer be?
Lo: I've been living abroad for almost four months now, and I went back to the U.S. for a few days to visit in May. It feels like the entire country is in a tremendous amount of pain.
Setiawan: What is one way (no matter how big or small) you think that area can be restored or made whole again?
Lo: It's going to be a long, difficult process to find healing in the United States, but I believe it will need to start with improving education from a young age, across the board, and doubling down on community-centric values and respect for others.
Setiawan: What has been inspiring you recently?
Lo: Hong Kong is such an inspiring city—and I love meeting and working with new people who come from such diverse and international backgrounds. I grew up in New York and spent my entire professional life there—it's been such a shift in worldview to take myself completely out of the context of New York media.
Setiawan: Do you cook?
Lo: Yes! I love to cook. In between fashion editor jobs, I was the Executive Editor at Epicurious and, more recently, the Digital Director at Food & Wine. I love cooking for myself and I love cooking for others—I love the ritual of a well-loved recipe, and I also love sharing meals with friends.
Setiawan: What's your signature dish?
Lo: I don't know if I have a signature dish, but I have an entire repertoire of one-pot recipes I've learned by heart: an easy weeknight coq au vin; endless variations on risotto; stews and soups; anything in a Dutch oven.