Employees only: the factory canteens serving tempting food to Hong Kong diners, if you know where to look
Lobster risotto, scallop udon, beef pho, sweet and sour ribs – a hipster dining scene has emerged in the converted industrial buildings of rising art district Wong Chuk Hang; officially, you have to work in one to sample the food, but …
From street level, the Kingley Industrial Building looks like just another uninviting, monolithic tower in a gritty part of Hong Kong’s south side.
But ride its service lift to the 25th floor and you’ll find Goodwill Production: a hipster cafe serving elegantly plated lobster risotto, eggs Benedict, and salmon fillet with mashed potatoes for bargain prices in the most inconspicuous of settings.
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This is one of Wong Chuk Hang’s “factory canteens” – restaurants opened to serve people working in the area’s industrial buildings, and which are increasingly being gatecrashed by the public.
Harris Lau, 30, opened Goodwill in 2014. It was his first restaurant and he picked Wong Chuk Hang because “the rent was low”, he says.
“We did no promotion when we opened,” he says. “We just put a poster on the street outside our factory building. We had one customer a day in the first week. But then she told her colleagues to come, and the same thing kept happening.”
Today, manga comics and Gundan figurines line the restaurant’s shelves – Lau’s childhood collection – and Goodwill is so buzzing it’s hard to get a seat around lunchtime.
