How Hong Kong’s hidden bars inspired 2 speakeasies in Vancouver’s Chinatown

Nestled among shops selling furniture and traditional Chinese medicine in Vancouver’s Chinatown is a curious-looking storefront on Main Street. The shop sign reads “Happy Valley Turf Club”, calling to mind the Hong Kong neighbourhood of the same name that is known for its racecourse. The shop, as it turns out, is not a shop at all, but a front for a hidden speakeasy, and its doors remain firmly shut during the day. In the evening, the place comes alive, with a queue of people waiting to be let in. Within the shop, there is an old-school betting counter, a blackboard listing racehorses and their odds, and even a television screen showing Hong Kong race highlights. Those in the know place a wager on King Louie, which unlocks a door to Bagheera, a sophisticated-looking bar named after the panther in Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book. King Louie, too, is a reference – to the orangutan introduced in Disney’s animated take on the story. The train-carriage-like bar has a distinctive curved ceiling reminiscent of that of J.Boroski’s, a now-closed bar in Hong Kong’s Central district. Guests sit on luxurious, upholstered seats and sip cocktails with names inspired by Kipling’s works, such as Man’s Red Flower – the name that The Jungle Book animals use to refer to fire – and The Anvil, which is a tip of the hat to the author’s political poem of the same name. Food is served thali, or platter-style, with a large tray holding small bowls of dishes like carrot daal, vegetable pakoras and lamb biryani. This is all the brainchild of co-founder Lewis Hart, 36, who was inspired to open the bar after visiting a variety of Hong Kong’s speakeasy-style venues, such as J. Boroski, Bar Butler, Stockton and The Old Man – the last of which he says blew him away with its Ernest Hemingway theme. Hart first visited Hong Kong in 2017, when he was the director of operations of a Canadian company with a franchise in the city. Then in his mid-20s, he would frequent bars after his meetings were done for the day. At one point, his visits to Hong Kong were as often as once every three weeks. He used the visits to do research and get inspiration for his own bar, which he wanted to open by the time he turned 30. He achieved that not with Bagheera, but with Laowai, which he opened in 2021. The speakeasy on Vancouver’s East Georgia Street has amassed something of a following and recently landed at number 67 on the extended list of North America’s 50 Best Bars. Laowai, like Bagheera, is hidden behind an unassuming shopfront – this time a food spot called Blnd Tger Dumplings, which sells dumplings, siu mai and even stinky tofu. Those who ask for item No 7 on the menu will be shown to the 1930s Shanghai-style bar, which can only be accessed behind a refrigerator door. “I really like how speakeasies are done in Asia, where it’s like hidden because it’s so busy outside that this is actually more of a hideaway,” Hart says. “It’s kind of like a membership club without a fee – if you can find us, that’s your membership.” Hart was also inspired by the history of Vancouver’s Chinatown, from its former opium and gambling dens to its Prohibition-era hidden bars during the early 20th century. He wanted to bring back the feeling of those speakeasies with the bars he created. For Laowai, he did a lot of research on the history of Shanghai, from how many refugees from Europe fled there during World War II to how capitalism flourished in the city. He was also intrigued by tales of the Green Gang, a centuries-old Chinese secret society that grew in prominence and controlled criminal activity in Shanghai in the first half of the 1900s. Laowai’s bar menu highlights cocktails made with baijiu, a throat-burning spirit made from fermented sorghum, which is a type of grain. Hart wants to educate more people in Vancouver about the world’s most consumed spirit by volume. When customers come in and they do not know what baijiu is, Hart explains, “It’s like nothing you’ve tried before. They’re like, ‘Is it kind of like tequila?’ No, this is if tequila had a cooler, older uncle.” He is keen to prove that baijiu is not just a throat-burner of a drink but that it can have complexity and many different flavour profiles, from bubblegum to pineapple. Laowai, which started with four bottles of baijiu behind the bar, now has 62 different kinds, and bartenders get through several cases per week. Hart says he has even seen people take photos of the bottles so that they can buy them elsewhere. “It’s people from all walks of life, and that’s where we’re high-fiving each other at the end, where we’re like, OK, regardless of sales, we have a new person that has been bitten by baijiu,” he says with a laugh. Perhaps his favourite memory so far has been seeing a grandma, wearing a bright pink puffer jacket, come to the bar with her grandchildren. The younger customers explained that they had been at Laowai the week before, and had got drunk before showing up late for a family dinner. When they explained to their grandmother that they had been drinking baijiu at a bar, her eyes lit up, and she asked them to take her there next time. “That is the story you’re going to say, ‘Remember when we took grandma to the cocktail bar and we all had baijiu together?’ And they’ve been able to reconnect over something,” Hart says, smiling. “One day, hopefully long in the future, when the doors [of Laowai] are closed, that story will stick with me, because that is what hospitality is – where it’s turned into something that people will remember, not just me serving the drink, but someone [who] has been able to walk away and say, ‘I remember my best night out was with my grandma.’”

How Hong Kong’s hidden bars inspired 2 speakeasies in Vancouver’s Chinatown

Bagheera and Laowai co-founder Lewis Hart was inspired after visits to Hong Kong spots like J. Boroski, Stockton and The Old Man