Celebrity Life

How times flies. The Hari Hotel in Hong Kong opened its doors just a year ago to offer guests luxury accommodations well in the heart of the city, bringing a touch of sophistication and distinct London charm inspired by its English counterpart.

Celebrating its one-year anniversary, the hotel threw an intimate gathering for its supporters and friends at the Lounge and Lucciola Restaurant and Bar. Guests were treated to Brazilian dance performances at the party, as well as entertainment by psychic entertainer Stuart Palm.

Spotted at the party were the Harilela family, as well as friends such as Ankie Beilke, JuJu Chan Szeto, Anthony Szeto, Brandon Chau, Leonard and Candice Chao, and Anil and Sophia Melwani.

The post The Hari Hotel Throws its First Anniversary Cocktail Party appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

We talk to Peruvian chef Edwin Guzman, who’s reshaping Japanese restaurant Zoku with his Nikkei expertise.

Zoku, the elegant Japanese restaurant located on the second floor of The Hari hotel has welcomed Lima-native Edwin Guzman as head chef. With the appointment, the restaurant, which features a recently opened all-day dining terrace, is heading in a new direction.

Guzman has worked with some of the best chefs in Peru, mastering the art of Nikkei when the fusion cuisine was at the height of its popularity in Lima’s most prestigious kitchens and before it became a global sensation. At Zoku, he’s reshaping the traditional Japanese menu by adding dishes and influences that represent his career and the culinary tradition inspired by this marriage of two diverse cultures, which dates to the late 19th century.

We speak to Guzman about his career and his new journey at Zoku.

Chef Edwin Guzman on Zoku at The Hari Hong Kong

Tell us about your career.

I started cooking very young and I’ve always wanted to work for the best chefs. I worked for Gastón Acurio, one of the top chefs in Peru. Then I had the opportunity to work with chef Mitsuharu Tsumura of Maido, which is number seven on this year’s 50 Best Restaurants. I eventually became his number two and met Aldo Shimabukuro, who’s now our sous chef. Together, we were given the mission to open a restaurant in Macau by chef Mitsuharu. We brought the first Nikkei restaurant to Macau at Aji MGM Cotai.

At that time, around two years ago, I was coming to Hong Kong often because it was very good for me to discover new flavours, new techniques and new chefs. Eventually, I decided to join The Hari and work here in Hong Kong, which is one of the food capitals of the world and very challenging for a chef. Compared to Macau standards, this is a small hotel, which is great because we’re like a family and truly work together. At Zoku, I’m not behind Mitsuharu’s name. I’m bringing my experience and my heritage to the restaurant. I’m trying to give my personal Nikkei touch to the dishes.

What percentage of the menu is now Nikkei and what is still traditional Japanese?

Now it’s 25 percent Nikkei, as I joined only recently, but we’re definitely going to introduce more. The most important thing for us is to implement the changes gradually so we can get feedback from guests and see how it goes. I’m also adjusting and slowly bringing my style to the kitchen. It’s quite fun because I’m also learning a lot.

How did you get exposed to Japanese cuisine before joining Zoku?

I learnt a lot by working very closely with chef Mitsuharu, who worked in Japan. But I also went to Osaka to train with other chefs.

What are some of the new dishes that you’ve introduced?

We’re making nigiri sushi that’s pretty different from the traditional variety. We marinate sea bass with miso, which was done with black cod before. We have a new lamb dish as well.

Was it challenging for you to come up with a menu and take charge here at Zoku?

Hong Kong is challenging as a place. Everyone is always running and moving. When I arrived, I had to be ready for a tasting in three days and it was hard to find all the ingredients and organise everything. The restaurant was always open and running, so it was weird at the beginning to send out dishes that were not really mine, but this stimulated me a lot to adapt, to find the right suppliers and teach the staff how to execute the new recipes. It’s important to cook for your staff first so that they can appreciate your food and cook with passion, not just execute it. We changed 50 percent of the menu and we’ll do more.

What do you like the most about Hong Kong?

I like the history behind Hong Kong. I also love how everything is so organised and technological. The markets are amazing in the way they preserve traditions. So, there’s a great mix and balance of innovation and preservation.

What are your favourite ingredients to cook with?

As a Peruvian, definitely chilli. For us, it’s not about the spice, it’s about the taste. Potatoes, of course, as we have more than 4,000 types in our country. The third would be soy sauce.

The post Next Chapter: Chef Edwin Guzmán on Reshaping Zoku at The Hari Hong Kong appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

Built on the legacy of the Harilela family and inspired by its London counterpart, The Hari Hong Kong opened its door last December on Lockhart Road. Since then, the property has received a lot of attention for its charming interiors, food offerings and unique atmosphere.

There are not many places in the world where the luxury hospitality scene is as diverse and crowded as it is in Hong Kong. The Hari, however, brought to our city something that was definitely missing: a relaxed - and yet elegant - contemporary space that perfectly encapsulates the cosmopolitan urban retreat formula.

Location 8/10

Located between two of Hong Kong's most vibrant neighbourhoods, Wan Chai and Causeway Bay, The Hari is surrounded by countless dining, shopping and leisure options. From the hotel, guests can easily walk to markets, trendy coffee-shops, upscale restaurants and local landmarks, like the Golden Bauhinia Square, Blue House and Hong Kong Arts Centre, to fall in love with this part of the city all over again.

Design 9/10

The property was deigned by Tara Bernerd of Tara Bernerd & Partners, who previously worked with Aaron Harilela to create the London branch of the hotel. The Lounge, located on the first floor, combines the atmosphere of an upscale private library, contemporary tea room and living room in one space. We absolutely love the attention to details, from the special editions of classic literary masterpieces on the shelves, to the impressive artworks on the wall and the carefully curated objects that decorate every corner of the room. This distinctive style shines through the guest rooms and other communal areas of The Hari, which exudes personality and character.

Room: 8/10

We stayed in a Premium Corner Room, a spacious open plan that overlooks the skyscrapers of Wan Chai and Admiralty. Larger than a standard room, the space includes a dressing room, a soothing marble bathroom and a living area by the large windows.

In line with the hotel's identity, each guest room combines luxury and comfort with contemporary design and artistic touches.

Service & Facilities: 8/10

Our stay was elevated by the hotel's friendly, helpful and attentive staff. Facilities include a brand-new gym with world class equipments and room service from the hotel's restaurants.

Food & Drink: 9/10

We've loved the hotel's food concepts, Zoku and Lucciola (you can check out our full review and interviews with chefs here), since the first time we tried them back in December. Both restaurants excel in identity, design, food quality and service. Zoku, a Nobu-esque modern Japanese eatery, never disappoints when it comes to refined and reinterpreted classic pairings. Lucciola, helmed by a Piedmontese chef, offers bold and memorable timeless dishes and regional options. Make sure to check out the outstanding cocktail options by Beverage Manager Sabrina Cantini.

Rating: 8.5/10

Perfect for: An urban escape in the spirit of contemporary luxury, cosmopolitan atmosphere and trendy eateries.

The Hari Hong Kong, 330 Lockhart Rd, Wan Chai; +852 2129 0388

The post Staycation Review: An Urban-Chic Escape at The Hari Hong Kong appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day and we can't think of a better way to start your morning than with a luxurious spread at one of Hong Kong’s finest hotels. From all-you-can-eat upscale buffets to thoughtfully crafted sets and indulgent menus, these are the the best luxury hotel breakfasts in Hong Kong.

SOMM, The Landmark Mandarin Oriental

If you're looking for a bubbly and decadent breakfast, SOMM’s formula comprises hot, savoury, and sweet delicacies served with Olivier Blanc de Noirs champagne. Its cage-free egg dishes include a tempting poached egg English muffin with black truffle butter, hollandaise sauce and crispy bellota ham. To truly start your day with an indulgent treat, you can also choose from dishes like banana pancakes covered in toasted pecan nuts, dark Okinawa sugar syrup and yuzu.

SOMM, 7/F, The Landmark Mandarin Oriental, The Landmark, 15 Queen's Road Central; +852 2132 0055

Salisterra, Upper House

Newly opened Salisterra at Upper House boasts six delicate morning spreads featuring traditional East Asian fare, a classic English breakfast, a vegetarian herbivore special and even a Charcuterie set. You can opt for the House Viennoiserie for freshly baked pastries and French press coffee or for the Japanese set to try grilled salted salmon with tamagoyaki, steamed rice, miso soup, and Genmaicha green tea.

Salisterra, Level 49, The Upper House, Pacific Place, 88 Queensway, Admiralty; +852 3968 1106

Grand Café, Grand Hyatt

The Grand Café at the Grand Hyatt has it all: an à-la-carte morning menu, continental and healthy breakfast sets, and an all-you-can-eat buffet guaranteed to have something for everyone. The thoughtful menu makes a note of everything (including alcohol and pork, as well as highlighting vegetarian options), allowing for a no-brainer morning meal. Make sure to browse the Healthy Choice teas to boost your energy, including a specially designed jet-lag relief concoction.

Grand Café, Lobby, Grand Hyatt, 1 Harbour Road, Wan Chai; +852 2584 7722

The Lobby, The Peninsula

Eating at The Lobby at The Peninsula is a timeless Hong Kong tradition. Start your day early with authentic Continental and Chinese breakfast staples. Delightful dishes include a brioche French toast with apple compote, mixed berries, and maple syrup and an avocado rye toast topped with a poached egg and tomato salsa. Don't forget to try a home-baked pastry (there's even a gluten-free option!) from The Peninsula’s iconic bakery.

The Lobby, G/F, The Peninsula, Salisbury Road, Tsim Sha Tsui; +852 2696 6772

Lucciola, The Hari

Trendy Italian eatery Lucciola at The Hari features a daily breakfast a-la-carte menu and a weekend semi-buffet option. Head to Wan Chai for modern décor, hot treats and eggs in any style. The upscale continental breakfast includes a bread basket, sliced fruit, orange juice and coffee. Need something sweeter? The orange brioche French toast with caramelised orange and mascarpone cream is a delectable dream.

Lucciola, 1/F, The Hari, 330 Lockhart Road, Wan Chai; +852 2129 0333

Clipper Lounge, Mandarin Oriental

The Clipper Lounge at Mandarin Oriental offers the perfect everything-under-the-sun breakfast buffet with dim sum and steamed buns, omelettes, noodles, congee, waffles, pancakes, and more. Perfect for a big group, head there early and take your time to check out each food station (the Chinese noodle selection is extensive!) to make sure you don't miss anything from the sumptuous banquet.

Clipper Lounge, Main Floor, Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong, 5 Connaught Road, Central; +852 2825 4007

The Lounge, Four Seasons

Enjoy dishes from the à-la-carte menu or opt for a hearty breakfast spread next to the Four Season's glass atrium lobby. The classic Hong Kong Breakfast comes with wok-fried noodles, rice congee, dim sum and Chinese tea. For an energising morning boost, the Well Feeling Breakfast set features an egg white frittata and a sourdough toast, complete with coconut juice, a fruit salad, organic yoghurt, a vegetable selection (asparagus, zucchini, tomatoes, ricotta and basil), and coffee or tea.

The Lounge, Four Seasons, 8 Finance Street, Central; +852 3196 8882

Holt’s Café, Rosewood

The ever elegant Holt’s Café is ideal for a closer-to-home traditional breakfast. A contemporary and upscale take on the city's cha chaan tengs, head to the Rosewood for local favourites such as spiced pork cubes instant noodles, rice congee, and wonton noodle soup. The Hong Kong-style teahouse also offers Japanese and Continental fare, as well as an extensive egg selection.

Holt’s Café, Rosewood Hong Kong, Victoria Dockside, 18 Salisbury Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon; +852 3891 8732

The Lounge & Bar, The Ritz-Carlton

With floor-to-ceiling windows, the view from The Ritz-Carlton’s The Lounge & Bar is truly unbeatable. Enjoy classic Western, Cantonese and Japanese fare while looking over the Victoria Harbour and skyline. The Healthy Breakfast Package is guaranteed to be a hearty, nourishing start to your day, with six food offerings including poached organic free range eggs on whole wheat muffin with avocado and green salad, and a fresh fruit quinoa salad with honey, lime and basil mint. Want a lighter start to your day? Browse the wide selection of Chinese and black teas and start your morning with a soothing cup.

The Lounge & Bar, 102/F, The Ritz-Carlton, International Commerce Centre (ICC), 1 Austin Road West; +852 2263 2270

The post The Best Luxury Hotel Breakfasts in Hong Kong appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

It’s a trying time for the hospitality and tourism industry but Dr Aron Harilela is taking bold steps, including opening The Hari Hong Kong late last year.

The post How prominent Hong Kong hotelier Dr Aron Harilela is navigating the pandemic appeared first on The Peak Magazine.

It’s a trying time for the hospitality and tourism industry but Dr Aron Harilela is taking bold steps, including opening The Hari Hong Kong late last year.

For more stories like this, visit www.thepeakmagazine.com.sg.

The Hari Hong Kong hotel is home to the dining concepts Lucciola and Zoku, which embody their respective cuisines with finesse and interesting flavours. We recently talked to the chefs behind the two restaurants.

A defining aspect of Hong Kong is the passion of its residents for food. There aren’t many other places in the world where urbanities enjoy eating out as much as they do here, to the point where, when a new restaurant opens its door, a sort of collective joy pervades the community. For chef Francesco Gava of Lucciola, the newly opened Italian restaurant at The Hari Hong Kong hotel in Wanchai, this passion and the locals’ knowledge of good food are at the core of its menu and vision.

“In Hong Kong, people travel a lot, and there’s so much great food available from all over the world that their palates are very refined,” Gava tells me in his unmistakably Piedmontese accent, while we converse in Italian. “We shouldn’t change our dishes to make them more similar to local flavours. If a Hong Konger has been to Italy and liked those authentic dishes, I want to be able to recreate exactly that; not adjust them. I think that would be a big mistake.”

This principle particularly applies to Lucciola, which is, first and foremost, a classic Italian restaurant that serves seasonal dishes from all over the peninsula. In many ways, the restaurant’s menu and elegant decor remind me of some Milanese establishments that define that city’s dining culture and soul: honest and delicious food served in an effortlessly chic and yet familiar environment.

“We don’t do traditional food with a modern twist. No, we cook traditional classic dishes sometimes using new techniques,” Gava continues. “For example, the veal of our Vitello Tonnato is cooked sous vide and not in milk, an evolution of the way it’s usually cooked to elevate the main ingredient, but the sauce is the same and so are the flavours.”

The menu features comfort dishes, such as Cotoletta alla Milanese, the breaded and pan-fried veal cutlet nicknamed orecchia di elefante (elephant’s ear) in Lombardy because of its hefty size; Torta Caprese Bianca, originally from the Island of Capri and made with white chocolate, lemon and limoncello; and Spaghettini alle Vongole Veraci e Bottarga, a quintessential pasta dish found in pretty much every coastal restaurant in Italy.

Through these timeless recipes, Gava and his team celebrate the Italian terrain with fresh and diverse ingredients and earthy flavours. While most of the items on Lucciola’s menu would definitely be familiar to anyone who regularly eats Italian food, there’s a section of unexpected offerings.

“I honestly don’t believe in signature dishes, but the My Favourites section on the à la carte menu truly reflects what I love eating and my heritage,” Gava explains. “I grew up eating the Spaghetti Acciughe e Tomino Fresco, with anchovies and fresh local cheese – it’s a family favourite that most people outside Piedmont have never tried, much like the Acquerello Risotto Porri e Luganega, with sausage and rice from Vercelli, a city in my native region that’s famous for rice.”

Gava is right. I am among the Italians who’d never tried the creamy pasta dish before, which instantly became a favourite after a few bites. A simple and yet elegant spaghetti recipe like this proves that traditional doesn’t equal clichéd or predictable. Perhaps this is particularly true for a country like Italy, where regionalism and a long gastronomic history make its cuisine impressively diverse and interesting for locals and foreigners alike.

“My first memory in the kitchen is about being turbulent. I was a very agitated young man at 17, and I was not a good student … I learned everything on the job,” Gava tells me as we discuss the professional journey that brought him to Lucciola. “There’s a sort of structure in professional kitchens, which I needed, but also a lot of craziness. From a young age, you have the opportunity to create something from scratch and put yourself in it.”

From local trattorias to luxury hotels in Saint Moritz and around Switzerland, and then on to cosmopolitan kitchens in Dubai, his passion to create something delicious that stays true to its origins has always been a priority and mission. “Being a chef is a very hard and physical job, where you’re constantly judged,” Gava continues. “I loved the energy in the kitchen from the very beginning and it’s where I feel best.”

One floor above Lucciola, on the second level of The Hari, Phillip Pak, chef de cuisine at Zoku Restaurant and Terrace, had a similar start to his career. “It began when I was 17 through a friend of my mum in the US who was a sushi chef,” he tells me. “I used to work part-time, washing dishes, like they do in Japan and Europe – I learned everything from this chef and didn’t go to culinary school. Honestly, no one knows what they want to do as a teenager, but this job truly is my passion and because these days many young people aren’t trained like that any more, I feel very fortunate.”

From watching chefs stretch homemade noodles at the back of the Korean restaurants his parents opened when they moved to Colorado, to learning the basics of the complex art of sushi-making as a humble dishwasher, Pak eventually landed in some of the most prestigious kitchens in America.

“Years ago, I moved to California and worked for Gordon Ramsey. Then I went to Vail, in Colorado, where I worked in the best sushi restaurants in the city, Matsuhisa by Nobu Matsuhisa,” Pak tells me as he enthusiastically talks about his mentor and culinary hero. “In the end, I was chef the cuisine at Matsuhisa in Aspen for three years.”

Pak talks very fondly of his time working with the Japanese celebrity chef and restaurateur, whom he describes as “genuine” and “someone that always encourages you to cook with your heart”.

The expertise and nuanced culinary approach learned under the leadership of Nobu, who effectively popularised modern and innovative takes on Japanese cuisine, have been instrumental to Pak, who designed Zoku’s concept and created an ingredient-focused menu.

“There are so many Japanese restaurants in Hong Kong, so we don’t aspire to provide an authentic experience but something refreshing that keeps changing,” Pak explains. “Each dish is based on bold flavours and their development through different techniques.”

The sharing-style seasonal menu is truly reflective of Zoku’s Instagram-perfect dccor of pastel shades and velvet touches, retro-chic, tasselled lampshades, and its asymmetric origami ceiling. Dishes such as the Chilean Seabass with yuzu herb butter, sautéed brussels sprouts and oyster cream, and the Yellowtail Sashimi with yuzu, soy and sashimi, which are both delicate and bold at the same time, are representative of the restaurant’s heterogeneous interpretation of what contemporary Japanese food is.

For Zoku’s trendy terrace, set to open soon, Pak, his team and Sabrina Cantini Budden, beverage manager at The Hari Hong Kong, have come up with a selection of decadent hand rolls, like the mouth-watering Toro, uni and caviar temaki, and creative cocktails like the impeccably presented Suzie Wong with Japanese whisky, rose syrup, cucumber and yuzu soda.

“In Japanese, Zoku means clan, and, in many ways, we’re trying to build a family both with our clients and in terms of food and atmosphere” Pak explains. “I think that Hong Kong is a very tough crowd, which is great, but it makes you want to be better. It’s also very close to Japan. For me, the most important thing is to bring memorable flavours together.”

Albeit in different ways, Lucciola and Zoku both deliver the type of convivial and yet elegant experience that you’d want to come back for. This, combined with memorable flavours and an enviable setting, makes The Hari the newest dining mecca in town.

(Here shot: Lucciola's Lucciola’s Amberjack Carpaccio with Braised Tropea Red Onions)

The post A Foodie’s Dream: Inside The Hari’s Lucciola and Zoku Restaurants appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

Seated in a corner suite in The Hari, his soon-to-be-completed hotel on that indistinct border where Wanchai and Causeway Bay wash into each other, Aron Harilela looks relaxed and very much at home. The hotel’s soft opening is planned for just a few weeks away, and every one of the floors beneath us is a cacophony of rattling and whining hammer drills, clumping work boots and the clatter of planks and scaffolding. Cables dangle from ceilings and the air is a soup of concrete dust and wood shavings, but if Harilela is concerned about the progress of the first hotel bearing his eminent family’s name – or, to be more accurate, a shortened version of it – to open in his home city, he certainly doesn’t show it.

Virtually a Hong Kong dynasty, the Harilela family has been in the hospitality business for half a century, so why did it take so long for them to go the whole hog and manage their properties themselves? “For years we had one business model,” explains Harilela, “which was to either build or buy hotels, and then give them to third- party management – Holiday Inn, InterContinental, Hilton, W, etcetera. But after 45 years of doing this, the world has changed and the landscape is very different from what it was even 20 years ago. I thought that the hotel market was ripe for something different, with little niches here and there where you could place your hotel.

“So I said let’s do our own hotel, and in about 2010 we started to renovate our London property. At that point I wanted to run the hotel ourselves, but some people in the office said, ‘Listen, what are you doing? We don’t run hotels, we asset manage.’ Weirdly enough, though, my father was very much in favour of running it ourselves. To cut a long story short, we didn’t, but four years later I said, ‘Right, sorry guys, we’ve had enough, we’re going to do it ourselves.’”

The Hari Hong Kong Opens Its Doors on December 12.

After consulting with a branding company on possible names – Harilela says they considered brands based on locations, feelings and personal or family names – they eventually plumped for The Hari, a “mixture between our truncated family name and my father’s name, which resonated with us”. Also, he says, “It’s a name that can travel, it has some gravitas, you can have it in London, you can have it in Bangkok and you can have it in Hong Kong and I don’t think it’s out of place anywhere. It would have been silly to call it The Chesham – our London property’s in Chesham Place, but what does that mean anywhere else?”

Fashioned out of an existing hotel and with just 85 rooms, the London Hari is considerably smaller than its newer sibling in Hong Kong, though there are definite similarities, not least in the fact the famed designer Tara Bernerd was responsible for the interiors of both.

“When we started on the London hotel,” says Harilela, “a hotelier friend, Jason Pomerantz, said, ‘You’ve got to get Tara to do this,’ even though she’d only ever done residential properties before. I said to him, ‘She’s never done hotels, are you crazy?’ But Tara and I got on really well and we created something in London that I think really hit the mark. It’s luxurious but it’s not crazy luxurious and you really feel relaxed – you feel as if you want to come back, regularly.

“I wanted to keep that DNA, so I told Tara that she had to do all The Haris – I don’t want them to look exactly the same but there’s a masculinity to it. It’s not refined luxury and it’s certainly not very feminine.”

Ever a dapper dresser, Harilela today is clad in a bespoke suit in an especially flamboyant blue-and-grey Prince of Wales check, so it seems obvious that the hotel’s look and ambience would also reflect his personal style. “For the first project in London,” he says, “I’d literally walk into Tara’s office and say, ‘I love that tweed jacket, and those grey flannel trousers. That’s what I want to do with the hotel.’ Not only the decor and the clothing, but also in the style of the service. I’m not very poncey and formal, I’m just not. I don’t want to arrive at a restaurant and everyone’s saying, ‘Sir,’ twenty-five times – I mean, just shut up, I’m eating my food. And I’d rather chat with the staff. Maybe it isn’t casual, but it’s certainly not formal, which isn’t the easiest thing to do in Hong Kong, because people are used to that hierarchy.

“If you give me two exact-same hotels, exact-same rooms, exact-same room rates and you go downstairs and one has a buzzing bar and the other one, you go in and the guy says, ‘Er, would you like a cup of tea?’ I’d go to the one with the buzzing bar. When you see what our Japanese restaurant looks like – it’s not designed like a traditional Japanese restaurant. It’s not all bamboo and dark, we’re going to have pumping music and it’s got nothing to do with Japan or Japanese restaurants except the food. We’ve just got a chef from Matsuhisa in Aspen, and I’m so excited about it.”

Harilela isn’t the least bit fazed by the discrepancies in location between the London and Hong Kong hotels. “It doesn’t matter that the Haris in London and Hong Kong are in very different areas,” he says. “Actually, Belgravia [in London] isn’t the best place to put a hotel, because it’s very residential, it’s not that close to the City and the Tube station isn’t that close either, but we really spruced that place up and we’ve done well with it. It’s very London, though, and this is very Hong Kong.

“A few years ago, when we did the W in Sydney, I’d never been there before. It was in Woolloomooloo – and a friend of mine said: ‘Do. Not. Touch. Woolloomooloo. Just don’t touch it, it’s terrible. It’s full of gangs and crime…’ But going to Sydney with new eyes, the one thing I realised was that you go west and you go east and everything is developed, but also that people also love places that are on the water. The hotel is on the water and it’s just a 10-minute walk through the most beautiful botanical gardens to the CBD. This was a pocket that was so overlooked and underdeveloped, and I think it’s the same for where we are in Wanchai.”

There's a masculinity to it — it's certainly not very feminine

Aron Harilela

As for London’s 85 rooms compared to Hong Kong’s 210, Harilela admits that “this is going to be a massive test for us. We can do it in London, but this is a bigger product, it’s our home base and it involves much more investment, because we bought the land, bought the buildings, tore them down and built this from scratch. So we have to get this right. And if we do, then our expansion plans – well, we’ll have to think it out. Can we go bigger, 320 rooms? Because that’s the next bracket where the economies of scale really make sense.”

And then, of course, there’s Covid-19 looming above everything – and, not least, the hospitality industry. “Well,” says Harilela, “you can’t open at 90 percent occupancy anyway. You start with 30 percent and then you nudge it up and you nudge it up again. So there’s only going up from here. We can’t go back down – all economies would be on their knees, so we’ll have no option but to open up the borders at some point. People are social animals. Will we be social distancing on planes? Yeah, for a little while, but once this is over I think that everything will go back to normal. I think we’ll go back to what we know best.

“All those years ago when my father built the Holiday Inn Golden Mile, it was at the end of the ’60s, the riots in Hong Kong had just happened and a lot of his external shareholders said, ‘I’m out.’ This is the first hotel I’ve ever built, and then Covid comes along and I said, ‘Come on, this can’t happen again!’”

The post Something About Hari: Aron Harilela Goes Solo appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

Seated in a corner suite in The Hari, his soon-to-be-completed hotel on that indistinct border where Wanchai and Causeway Bay wash into each other, Aron Harilela looks relaxed and very much at home. The hotel’s soft opening is planned for just a few weeks away, and every one of the floors beneath us is a cacophony of rattling and whining hammer drills, clumping work boots and the clatter of planks and scaffolding. Cables dangle from ceilings and the air is a soup of concrete dust and wood shavings, but if Harilela is concerned about the progress of the first hotel bearing his eminent family’s name – or, to be more accurate, a shortened version of it – to open in his home city, he certainly doesn’t show it.

Virtually a Hong Kong dynasty, the Harilela family has been in the hospitality business for half a century, so why did it take so long for them to go the whole hog and manage their properties themselves? “For years we had one business model,” explains Harilela, “which was to either build or buy hotels, and then give them to third- party management – Holiday Inn, InterContinental, Hilton, W, etcetera. But after 45 years of doing this, the world has changed and the landscape is very different from what it was even 20 years ago. I thought that the hotel market was ripe for something different, with little niches here and there where you could place your hotel.

“So I said let’s do our own hotel, and in about 2010 we started to renovate our London property. At that point I wanted to run the hotel ourselves, but some people in the office said, ‘Listen, what are you doing? We don’t run hotels, we asset manage.’ Weirdly enough, though, my father was very much in favour of running it ourselves. To cut a long story short, we didn’t, but four years later I said, ‘Right, sorry guys, we’ve had enough, we’re going to do it ourselves.’”

The Hari Hong Kong Opens Its Doors on December 12.

After consulting with a branding company on possible names – Harilela says they considered brands based on locations, feelings and personal or family names – they eventually plumped for The Hari, a “mixture between our truncated family name and my father’s name, which resonated with us”. Also, he says, “It’s a name that can travel, it has some gravitas, you can have it in London, you can have it in Bangkok and you can have it in Hong Kong and I don’t think it’s out of place anywhere. It would have been silly to call it The Chesham – our London property’s in Chesham Place, but what does that mean anywhere else?”

Fashioned out of an existing hotel and with just 85 rooms, the London Hari is considerably smaller than its newer sibling in Hong Kong, though there are definite similarities, not least in the fact the famed designer Tara Bernerd was responsible for the interiors of both.

“When we started on the London hotel,” says Harilela, “a hotelier friend, Jason Pomerantz, said, ‘You’ve got to get Tara to do this,’ even though she’d only ever done residential properties before. I said to him, ‘She’s never done hotels, are you crazy?’ But Tara and I got on really well and we created something in London that I think really hit the mark. It’s luxurious but it’s not crazy luxurious and you really feel relaxed – you feel as if you want to come back, regularly.

“I wanted to keep that DNA, so I told Tara that she had to do all The Haris – I don’t want them to look exactly the same but there’s a masculinity to it. It’s not refined luxury and it’s certainly not very feminine.”

Ever a dapper dresser, Harilela today is clad in a bespoke suit in an especially flamboyant blue-and-grey Prince of Wales check, so it seems obvious that the hotel’s look and ambience would also reflect his personal style. “For the first project in London,” he says, “I’d literally walk into Tara’s office and say, ‘I love that tweed jacket, and those grey flannel trousers. That’s what I want to do with the hotel.’ Not only the decor and the clothing, but also in the style of the service. I’m not very poncey and formal, I’m just not. I don’t want to arrive at a restaurant and everyone’s saying, ‘Sir,’ twenty-five times – I mean, just shut up, I’m eating my food. And I’d rather chat with the staff. Maybe it isn’t casual, but it’s certainly not formal, which isn’t the easiest thing to do in Hong Kong, because people are used to that hierarchy.

“If you give me two exact-same hotels, exact-same rooms, exact-same room rates and you go downstairs and one has a buzzing bar and the other one, you go in and the guy says, ‘Er, would you like a cup of tea?’ I’d go to the one with the buzzing bar. When you see what our Japanese restaurant looks like – it’s not designed like a traditional Japanese restaurant. It’s not all bamboo and dark, we’re going to have pumping music and it’s got nothing to do with Japan or Japanese restaurants except the food. We’ve just got a chef from Matsuhisa in Aspen, and I’m so excited about it.”

Harilela isn’t the least bit fazed by the discrepancies in location between the London and Hong Kong hotels. “It doesn’t matter that the Haris in London and Hong Kong are in very different areas,” he says. “Actually, Belgravia [in London] isn’t the best place to put a hotel, because it’s very residential, it’s not that close to the City and the Tube station isn’t that close either, but we really spruced that place up and we’ve done well with it. It’s very London, though, and this is very Hong Kong.

“A few years ago, when we did the W in Sydney, I’d never been there before. It was in Woolloomooloo – and a friend of mine said: ‘Do. Not. Touch. Woolloomooloo. Just don’t touch it, it’s terrible. It’s full of gangs and crime…’ But going to Sydney with new eyes, the one thing I realised was that you go west and you go east and everything is developed, but also that people also love places that are on the water. The hotel is on the water and it’s just a 10-minute walk through the most beautiful botanical gardens to the CBD. This was a pocket that was so overlooked and underdeveloped, and I think it’s the same for where we are in Wanchai.”

There's a masculinity to it — it's certainly not very feminine

Aron Harilela

As for London’s 85 rooms compared to Hong Kong’s 210, Harilela admits that “this is going to be a massive test for us. We can do it in London, but this is a bigger product, it’s our home base and it involves much more investment, because we bought the land, bought the buildings, tore them down and built this from scratch. So we have to get this right. And if we do, then our expansion plans – well, we’ll have to think it out. Can we go bigger, 320 rooms? Because that’s the next bracket where the economies of scale really make sense.”

And then, of course, there’s Covid-19 looming above everything – and, not least, the hospitality industry. “Well,” says Harilela, “you can’t open at 90 percent occupancy anyway. You start with 30 percent and then you nudge it up and you nudge it up again. So there’s only going up from here. We can’t go back down – all economies would be on their knees, so we’ll have no option but to open up the borders at some point. People are social animals. Will we be social distancing on planes? Yeah, for a little while, but once this is over I think that everything will go back to normal. I think we’ll go back to what we know best.

“All those years ago when my father built the Holiday Inn Golden Mile, it was at the end of the ’60s, the riots in Hong Kong had just happened and a lot of his external shareholders said, ‘I’m out.’ This is the first hotel I’ve ever built, and then Covid comes along and I said, ‘Come on, this can’t happen again!’”

The post Something About Hari: Aron Harilela Goes Solo appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

Seated in a corner suite in The Hari, his soon-to-be-completed hotel on that indistinct border where Wanchai and Causeway Bay wash into each other, Aron Harilela looks relaxed and very much at home. The hotel’s soft opening is planned for just a few weeks away, and every one of the floors beneath us is a cacophony of rattling and whining hammer drills, clumping work boots and the clatter of planks and scaffolding. Cables dangle from ceilings and the air is a soup of concrete dust and wood shavings, but if Harilela is concerned about the progress of the first hotel bearing his eminent family’s name – or, to be more accurate, a shortened version of it – to open in his home city, he certainly doesn’t show it.

Virtually a Hong Kong dynasty, the Harilela family has been in the hospitality business for half a century, so why did it take so long for them to go the whole hog and manage their properties themselves? “For years we had one business model,” explains Harilela, “which was to either build or buy hotels, and then give them to third- party management – Holiday Inn, InterContinental, Hilton, W, etcetera. But after 45 years of doing this, the world has changed and the landscape is very different from what it was even 20 years ago. I thought that the hotel market was ripe for something different, with little niches here and there where you could place your hotel.

“So I said let’s do our own hotel, and in about 2010 we started to renovate our London property. At that point I wanted to run the hotel ourselves, but some people in the office said, ‘Listen, what are you doing? We don’t run hotels, we asset manage.’ Weirdly enough, though, my father was very much in favour of running it ourselves. To cut a long story short, we didn’t, but four years later I said, ‘Right, sorry guys, we’ve had enough, we’re going to do it ourselves.’”

The Hari Hong Kong Opens Its Doors on December 12.

After consulting with a branding company on possible names – Harilela says they considered brands based on locations, feelings and personal or family names – they eventually plumped for The Hari, a “mixture between our truncated family name and my father’s name, which resonated with us”. Also, he says, “It’s a name that can travel, it has some gravitas, you can have it in London, you can have it in Bangkok and you can have it in Hong Kong and I don’t think it’s out of place anywhere. It would have been silly to call it The Chesham – our London property’s in Chesham Place, but what does that mean anywhere else?”

Fashioned out of an existing hotel and with just 85 rooms, the London Hari is considerably smaller than its newer sibling in Hong Kong, though there are definite similarities, not least in the fact the famed designer Tara Bernerd was responsible for the interiors of both.

“When we started on the London hotel,” says Harilela, “a hotelier friend, Jason Pomerantz, said, ‘You’ve got to get Tara to do this,’ even though she’d only ever done residential properties before. I said to him, ‘She’s never done hotels, are you crazy?’ But Tara and I got on really well and we created something in London that I think really hit the mark. It’s luxurious but it’s not crazy luxurious and you really feel relaxed – you feel as if you want to come back, regularly.

“I wanted to keep that DNA, so I told Tara that she had to do all The Haris – I don’t want them to look exactly the same but there’s a masculinity to it. It’s not refined luxury and it’s certainly not very feminine.”

Ever a dapper dresser, Harilela today is clad in a bespoke suit in an especially flamboyant blue-and-grey Prince of Wales check, so it seems obvious that the hotel’s look and ambience would also reflect his personal style. “For the first project in London,” he says, “I’d literally walk into Tara’s office and say, ‘I love that tweed jacket, and those grey flannel trousers. That’s what I want to do with the hotel.’ Not only the decor and the clothing, but also in the style of the service. I’m not very poncey and formal, I’m just not. I don’t want to arrive at a restaurant and everyone’s saying, ‘Sir,’ twenty-five times – I mean, just shut up, I’m eating my food. And I’d rather chat with the staff. Maybe it isn’t casual, but it’s certainly not formal, which isn’t the easiest thing to do in Hong Kong, because people are used to that hierarchy.

“If you give me two exact-same hotels, exact-same rooms, exact-same room rates and you go downstairs and one has a buzzing bar and the other one, you go in and the guy says, ‘Er, would you like a cup of tea?’ I’d go to the one with the buzzing bar. When you see what our Japanese restaurant looks like – it’s not designed like a traditional Japanese restaurant. It’s not all bamboo and dark, we’re going to have pumping music and it’s got nothing to do with Japan or Japanese restaurants except the food. We’ve just got a chef from Matsuhisa in Aspen, and I’m so excited about it.”

Harilela isn’t the least bit fazed by the discrepancies in location between the London and Hong Kong hotels. “It doesn’t matter that the Haris in London and Hong Kong are in very different areas,” he says. “Actually, Belgravia [in London] isn’t the best place to put a hotel, because it’s very residential, it’s not that close to the City and the Tube station isn’t that close either, but we really spruced that place up and we’ve done well with it. It’s very London, though, and this is very Hong Kong.

“A few years ago, when we did the W in Sydney, I’d never been there before. It was in Woolloomooloo – and a friend of mine said: ‘Do. Not. Touch. Woolloomooloo. Just don’t touch it, it’s terrible. It’s full of gangs and crime…’ But going to Sydney with new eyes, the one thing I realised was that you go west and you go east and everything is developed, but also that people also love places that are on the water. The hotel is on the water and it’s just a 10-minute walk through the most beautiful botanical gardens to the CBD. This was a pocket that was so overlooked and underdeveloped, and I think it’s the same for where we are in Wanchai.”

There's a masculinity to it — it's certainly not very feminine

Aron Harilela

As for London’s 85 rooms compared to Hong Kong’s 210, Harilela admits that “this is going to be a massive test for us. We can do it in London, but this is a bigger product, it’s our home base and it involves much more investment, because we bought the land, bought the buildings, tore them down and built this from scratch. So we have to get this right. And if we do, then our expansion plans – well, we’ll have to think it out. Can we go bigger, 320 rooms? Because that’s the next bracket where the economies of scale really make sense.”

And then, of course, there’s Covid-19 looming above everything – and, not least, the hospitality industry. “Well,” says Harilela, “you can’t open at 90 percent occupancy anyway. You start with 30 percent and then you nudge it up and you nudge it up again. So there’s only going up from here. We can’t go back down – all economies would be on their knees, so we’ll have no option but to open up the borders at some point. People are social animals. Will we be social distancing on planes? Yeah, for a little while, but once this is over I think that everything will go back to normal. I think we’ll go back to what we know best.

“All those years ago when my father built the Holiday Inn Golden Mile, it was at the end of the ’60s, the riots in Hong Kong had just happened and a lot of his external shareholders said, ‘I’m out.’ This is the first hotel I’ve ever built, and then Covid comes along and I said, ‘Come on, this can’t happen again!’”

The post Something About Hari: Aron Harilela Goes Solo appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

As if you need another reason for a staycation before this isolating and travel-starved year ends, a swanky new luxury hotel is all set for its debut next month.

The Hari Hong Kong is the second property of independent hospitality group Harilela Hotels, which opened The Hari London in 2016. Described as “swish”, and “welcoming”, the group’s first looks like the sort of place modern-day Don Drapers would live in, with Mario Testino on the walls, opulent marbled surfaces, and plush furnishing in bold colours.

British interior designer Tara Bernerd is the mastermind behind The Hari London, and has followed up her work for its upcoming sibling in Wan Chai with an equally debonair style, albeit more refined. The 210 guest rooms, including three signature rooftop suites with killer views of the city skyline, feature a neutral palette of beige, brown and grey, accented by pops of colour from the contemporary artworks on the wall.

Extra attention is given to the social spaces of the new hotel, which includes a lobby lounge, Japanese restaurant and terrace bar Zoku and Italian restaurant Lucciola, to draw discerning locals into its stylish confines. “Beyond a perfect night’s stay, The Hari Hong Kong aims to foster a deeper appreciation for the neighbourhood and the city — it will be the best way for locals to get reacquainted with Hong Kong and for discerning travellers who want to do more than scratch the surface of the city,” says Dr. Aron Harilela, Chairman and CEO of Harilela Hotels.

More details here.

(All images: The Hari Hong Kong)

The post Out of Staycation Ideas? The Hari Hong Kong Will Open its Doors on December 12 appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

The new hotel, which is set to open in Winter 2020, is the second hotel to open under the independent hospitality brand The Hari.

As Hong Kong's hospitality scene gets excited at the prospect of welcoming a new hotel opening, others are, well, just a tad surprised as to why one would open during the current economic climate, a direct result of the global pandemic.

We took a moment for a quick chat with the man of the hour himself, Dr. Aron Harilela Chairman and CEO of Harilela Hotels Ltd., to find out why and what we can expect from the new hotel.

"Of course it is a difficult time to open right now," says Harilela. "However, I am confident in Hong Kong. We will take this quiet period in the hospitality industry to get everything perfect in the hotel. It always takes time for training people into The Hari style, and it takes time to test all the equipment. We will be very ready when the market picks up again."

[caption id="attachment_209462" align="alignnone" width="1194"] Image: The Hari Hong Kong[/caption]

Location

Situated in bustling Wan Chai, the hotel is in the middle of a metropolitan area filled with commercial and residential buildings, but sits on the somewhat quieter end of Lockhart Road. It is also in close proximity to a wealth of bars and restaurants that breathe life into the neighbour.

On his belief that Hong Kong will, no doubt, bounce back, Harilela is also confident in the foundations of his brand. "We have a very good team that has been in the hotel industry all their careers and have much experience spanning all aspects of the hotel -- finance, operations, real estate and legal, he says. "I am also very confident in the location; we are walking distance from the convention centre which also is planned for expansion. With such foundations, I am confident we will do very well and am very much looking forward to opening."

[caption id="attachment_209461" align="alignnone" width="1241"] Image: The Hari Hong Kong[/caption]

Rooms and Design

The Hari Hong Kong is the second hotel from the group, with the first being The Hari London, which opened in August 2016. And how do they differ? "In essence it is the same," explains Harilela. "They have the same DNA, the same styling, the same threads that run through both of them... The personalisation of service is what characterises The Hari."

For the hotel's interior, Harilela brought in acclaimed British designer, Tara Bernerd, who has worked on a host of luxury hotels around the world including Four Seasons, Sixty Hotels and Equinox Hotels groups.

At The Hari Hong Kong, which comprises 210 guest rooms, three signature rooftop suites showcase a layered approach in design. It is an interior concept inspired by Harilela's own layered tailoring and style, in which guests can expect a modern, but clean, aesthetic in the rooms where plush textures meet contemporary shapes over a warm, inviting colour palette, while luxurious marble bathrooms are fitted with walk-in rainforest showers.

"The only difference will be that The Hari Hong Kong will be a larger property." (as The Hari London has 85 rooms).

[caption id="attachment_209459" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Image: The Hari Hong Kong[/caption]

Restaurants and Bars

With two restaurants, Italian and Japanese, and two bars including a large terrace bar, The Hari Hong Kong aims to be more than just a hotel, and rather a social space.

The Japanese restaurant, named Zoku (meaning clan in Japanese), will offer robata grilled dishes, tempura and sushi. Its dining area will be filled with angled booth seating, bar lounge seating and a terrace bar. Here, a soft palette of pink will give way to khaki velvet banquettes, patterned fabrics and sculptural furniture.

Meanwhile, Lucciola is made for comforting Italian cuisine in a relaxed yet refined space. Offering regional classics on the menu, the Italian restaurant will also feature a bright and bold palette of ambers and green, in which timber, polished plaster, and artwork, line the walls.

The Harilela Group

Established in 1959, The Harilela Group is a wholly owned company by the Hong Kong-based Harilela family. As the parent company of Harilela Hotels, the group owns a total of 15 properties across Hong Kong, China, Asia, Europe, and America.

All images are renderings provided by the The Hari Hong Kong.

The post What You Need to Know About New Hotel The Hari Hong Kong appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.