Alan Lo
Restaurateur and design guru Alan Lo has had a busy almost-decade since his days as a humble F&B management trainee at the Mandarin Oriental—he co-founded The Press Room Group and is chairman of the Ambassadors of Design collective, a non-profit dedicated to generating interest in creative work. He meets Leanne Mirandilla for coffee and a chat at Classified, one of The Press Room Group’s many restaurants around town.
I think architecture is a byproduct of my interest in art when I was younger. I started painting when I was relatively young, in my early teens. I learned from school, and I was also a student of renowned Chinese ink brush painter Zhao Shao-ang, who’s no longer alive. I can’t say I was very good at math or science, so I thought, “Architecture is a good solution. I might do well.”
I started my career in hotels. I knew, at some point in school, that professional architecture wasn’t my thing. I felt that I didn’t have the discipline to be a really good architect. But I liked design, and I still loved architecture.
I tried to make a few bucks [in the food and beverage industry], which is what drew me into the hotel project development side of things. I was working for Shangri-La hotels in their project management division. I started getting involved in some smaller projects, like restaurants. It was exciting to see something change completely from ground zero, [from the] concept stage to reality. I was very fascinated by that whole process.
I was traveling in China three-quarters of the time. I managed to brush up my really horrible Mandarin and pretend that I know how to live in China and blend in with the people [laughs].
Every time I was assigned to these projects, I didn’t stay in the hotel because the hotel was actually not built [yet], so I stayed in the crappy hotel next door to the site. Meanwhile, I looked at all the renderings saying, “Wow, it’s beautiful, the architecture is amazing,” and then I went to work every morning to this flat piece of land. Then two months before the hotel opened, the GM and the operating team would take over and I went to the next [building site]. Maybe if they were nice to me, I’d get invited to the grand opening.
The whole transition to opening Press Room and Classified here involved quite a few years of ongoing conversation with my two friends, who eventually became my partners in business. As a big city, Hong Kong was missing something. We had all lived and worked abroad, and we thought that there were all these really cool restaurants abroad where it’s not fine dining, it’s not chi-chi but the vibe is very good and everyone’s having a good time, but we don’t see that here.
