East-West Food Fusion : The toniest restaurants in town are American in style and attitude

To enjoy designer pizza, a la Wolfgang Puck, “fusion cuisine” from former Los Angeles chef Roy Yamaguchi, regional Mexican or the open kitchen styles of San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago, it’s no longer necessary to dine in the United States. American chefs are flocking to Hong Kong to get a piece of Asia’s boomtown. And a percentage of its dining bills.

With the growing affluence of Hong Kong Chinese, and influenced by chefs from California, Europe and Australia, Hong Kong’s nearly 9,000-strong restaurant scene has changed dramatically over the past decade. Dim sum, hot pot and Cantonese classics, such as steamed fish with scallion and ginger, will always reign. But the chic place to eat these days is in restaurants serving California-style cooking presented in a leisurely dining style.

The first of this genre to open, the restaurant/bar California was created 13 years ago by garment trader turned property tycoon Allan Zeman--among the richest men in Hong Kong. The Canadian-born Zeman opened California to appease his young expatriate staff of fashion and graphic designers, who longed for the casual dining and entertainment style they had enjoyed in North America. In the early 1980s there were no such Western-style establishments on Hong Kong Island. Those who wanted a burger, pizza or beer had a choice between large expensive hotels run by Brits or by Swiss-Germans who catered to Western tourists. Independent bars, cafes and restaurants were unheard of.

Zeman rented a space in Lan Kwai Fong, a two-block area then occupied by textile warehouses and linen factories. He later bought the entire building and became landlord to a variety of other restaurants, clubs and bars. He now owns several neighboring structures in the same area of the fashionable Central District, a business center of Hong Kong Island that is densely populated with commercial buildings and financial institutions. Lan Kwai Fong has grown to house 70 cafes, bars, restaurants, shops, galleries and stores--all jammed into an area about the size of one quarter of a downtown L.A. city block.

Though newer restaurants, bistros, pubs and cafes have opened since, California loyalists and beautiful people still frequent the popular landmark, with its trademark Muscle Beach burger, Caesar salad with sun-dried tomatoes and brownies a la mode. Dinner for two here, without drinks, is about $85.

But California was just the beginning of the North American connection.

For a taste of Miami-style Caribbean cooking, cookbook author and teacher Steven Raichlen created a menu for the restaurant Miami Spice that opened last year in the Tsim Sha Tsui district of Kowloon.

In a setting of bold Haitian art and tropical colors and the laid-back sounds of mambo, reggae and Cuba’s Top 10, singles and handsome bar lizards wrap their hands around drinks with names such as Mojitos and Rumrunners and nibble coconut shrimp, Rasta Rings and conch fritters. Dinner for two (three courses) without drinks is about $70.

On Hong Kong Island, East-meets-West is also played out nightly at the starkly beautiful and culinarily innovative Wyndham Street Thai in the Central District (often referred to as Central), where Chinese-Canadian chef Rosemary Lee creates exciting and bold Thai flavors with the finest seafood and Western ingredients.

The gallery-like interior has a minimalist feel, and its metal chairs, fuchsia and chartreuse walls and concrete pillars frame the food combinations that surprise those looking for standard Thai classics. Pla of duck, for example, has been on the menu since the restaurant opened 2 1/2 years ago, but Lee does not dare change the appetizer, which is composed of moist, tender pieces of duck tossed with lemon grass, chilies, basil and mint. More than 20 chalkboard specials change weekly and most are excellent and expensive (entrees run around $25), but char-grilled baby back ribs with tamarind and chili and honey-flavored prawns in a coconut-based red curry remain fixed features because, like pla of duck, they are popular with both Chinese and non-Chinese diners.

Wyndham also has Hong Kong’s most inspired wine list, including bottles from boutique wineries of Australia and New Zealand. Dinner for two, with wine, plus an automatic 10% service charge, runs about $115, although patrons are expected to also tip 5% above that.

Another hot scene with excellent food to match is the sepia-toned Va Bene, an Italian restaurant of three small rooms in the trendy Lan Kwai Fong area of Central. Here, CEOs and other movers and shakers meet for trattoria fare, gutsy red wines from the restaurant’s vineyard in Tuscany and a heaven-sent breadbasket of grissini and herbed flat bread served with a sassy pesto sauce.

This is where Italian chefs meet for afternoon grappas and where manager Pino Piano is on a first-name basis with guests who include members of Hong Kong’s Supreme Court, bankers, power lawyers, starlets and Asian tycoons.

Loyalists return for Va Bene’s signature dishes: fresh artichokes sauteed in olive oil, linguine with clams and tomato, baked squid with scallops and zucchini, roast loin of lamb in Barolo wine sauce and an ever-changing array of seafood. Dinner for two, with wine, is about $175.

Hong Kong’s premier example of showy, haute French (some call it stuffy), is the very serious nouvelle restaurant Petrus in the Island Shangri-La Hotel on Hong Kong Island. Petrus is best known for foie gras and truffles. Foie gras is chef Gerard Cavuscens’ signature ingredient; meals are served in a grand French salon with white-gloved service and the trappings of Riedel crystal and Christofle silver. Hong Kong’s only female Chinese sommelier stands ready to serve a 1947 magnum of Petrus for $11,000. This type of Michelin-style dining includes a buttery-rich black Perigord truffle soup with salsify and green asparagus, crispy pan-fried foie gras with poppy seed and peppered medallion of roe deer by the Swiss-trained Cavuscens. Dinner for two, with a modest wine, is about $300. The fixed-price menu ($110 per person without wine) is a good value.

Another favorite of locals and also one of mine is the chic and restrained Joyce Cafe in the Galleria shopping center in Central. Fashion and power personalities combine to create this stylish establishment. The brainchild of fashion entrepreneur Joyce Ma and her sister, Bonnie Gokson, the cafe broke new ground when it opened nearly four years ago with its Asia-Pacific vegetarian menu. There were fresh vegetable juices and skim milk for cappuccino, a dieter’s broth for patrons (and the owners) who fast on a regular basis and a policy of no dairy fats or mayonnaise.

The legendary Joyce club sandwich (grilled vegetables doused with olive oil on slices of whole-grain bread), the Thai-inspired layered terrine of sticky rice with mango, the grease-free won ton noodles and selection of ethereal dim sum have endured the whims of time.

A rendezvous for lean, clean cuisine, Joyce Cafe is where tai tais (rich married women), artists, film tycoons and executives drop their Vuitton briefcases and Armani shopping bags for lunch, tea and to be seen. Lunch for two, minus wine, is about $60. (No reservations.)

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Karin Joffe, a former Southern Californian who ran L.A.’s Karin Joffe Catering in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, last year created Zona Rosa for Allan Zeman, across the street from California in Zeman’s Lan Kwai Fong.

Zona Rosa restaurant is Hong Kong’s first regional Mexican restaurant. Designed in the hacienda style, it has three small rooms, whitewashed walls, wood floors, Mexican pottery and artwork. It is cozy and catacomb-like with genuine Mexican music on tape and interesting dishes in addition to familiar items such as tamales, enchiladas and quesadillas.

A three-course meal for two, without drinks, is about $85. Lunch buffet and combination plates are good values. Among the interesting: game hen with fermented cactus; mole sauce with white chocolate; duck with sweet-and-sour hibiscus flower essence glaze.

Last November, when Roy Yamaguchi and partners took over China Max in the Times Square shopping complex in Causeway Bay, he installed one of his chefs, Troy Guard. It was renamed Roy’s at the New China Max and remodeled into the most spectacular-looking Asian restaurant in town.

With Hong Kong’s most eclectic decor, Roy’s at the New China Max is Shangri-La in a shopping mall. As big as a gymnasium and designed on three levels, it is a maze of life-size Buddhas, waterfalls and palm trees, with a portrait of Mao in neon and a bevy of bronze deities from Burma and Indonesia.

The bar scene, with its bartenders-as-jugglers, competes with the food, which is always fun but sometimes confusing. The price for a meal for two, without wine, is about $85.

Fusion cuisine and architectural statements are also on the menu at Felix, the penthouse restaurant in the famed Peninsula Hotel.

Felix lures gawkers with a space that is more theater than dining room. With its daring planes and angles, leather-padded disco with casual stools, teak-upholstered elevators, hostesses in Philippe Starck-designed black gowns and huge marble slab bar that doubles as a runway for fashion galas, it is the handiwork of Starck, who is well known in U.S. hotel circles for his design work at New York’s Paramount and Royalton hotels and the Delano in Miami Beach.

Chef Bryan Nagao, an alumnus of the Yamaguchi kitchen, is willing to risk flavor collisions and wins with barbecued grilled lamb chops on Gorgonzola risotto with a heady smoked tomato sauce.

One wonderful appetizer, the Shrimp Not-So-Martini (a gin-clear homage to vodka, tomato water and shrimp) is served in the kind of stemmed martini glass that James Bond would approve of. Felix’s seared wild salmon with citrus-miso on Japanese cucumber salad shows Nagao’s preference for Asian over European influences. The compact menu of appetizers, salads and entrees is appealing to grazers. Dinner for two, without wine, comes to $155.

Sheridan was, until recently, food editor of the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong.

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GUIDEBOOK: American in Hong Kong

Where to eat: Reservations are necessary at most restaurants; one or two days in advance for midweek seating, further in advance for Friday and Saturday nights. Joyce Cafe does not take reservations. New China Max is so large, it is not always necessary to book a table.

California, G/F, California Towers, 24-26 Lan Kwai Fong, Central; telephone locally 2521-1345.

Felix, 28/F, The Peninsula, Salisbury Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon; tel. 2315-3188.

Joyce Cafe, the Galleria, 9 Queen’s Road, Central; tel. 2810-1481.

Miami Spice, 1/F, 12-16 Humphreys Avenue, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon; tel. 2724-8883.

Petrus, 56/F, Island Shangri-La Hotel, Supreme Court Road, Hong Kong; tel. 2820-8590.

Roy’s at the New China Max, 11/F Times Square, 1 Matheson St., Causeway Bay; tel. 2506-2282.

Va Bene, G/F, 58-62 D’Aguilar St., Lan Kwai Fong, Central; tel. 2845-5577.

Wyndham Street Thai, G/F, 38 Wyndham St., Central; tel. 2869-6216.

Zona Rosa, 2nd floor, 1 Lan Kwai Fong, Central; tel. 2801-5885.

--M.S.