Afternoon tea gets a K-beauty makeover at Harbour City this season. Cucina, the Forbes Four-Star Italian restaurant at Marco Polo Hongkong Hotel, has paired up with Korean luxury skincare house THE WHOO for a limited run of tea-time treats that borrow their colour palette — and a few of their ingredients — from a skincare counter.
In This Guide
What is the Luminous Glow Afternoon Tea?
Cucina and THE WHOO have built a tea set around the Korean skincare brand's Cheongidan Collection, translating its "Art of Balance" philosophy into food. Chef de Cuisine Andrea Delzanno has worked oriental ingredients associated with the skincare line — ginseng, gardenia, red dates, goji berries and sesame — into otherwise classic Italian tea-time formats, served on a gold-and-white stand designed to echo the brand's packaging.
It's a crossover format Hong Kong hotels increasingly lean on: pairing a beauty or fashion brand with a restaurant's afternoon tea to give both sides a reason to court each other's audience. Here, the tie-in runs deeper than colour-matching — the ingredients themselves are lifted from THE WHOO's product line, not just its branding.
What's on the stand?
The savoury tier includes duck liver terrine paired with ginseng jelly, smoked salmon finished with gold leaf and caviar, a crab meat and green apple tart with goji berry, a chicken salad served in a sesame basket, and a bruschetta with burrata cheese and truffle. On the sweet tier, the goji berry mousse is the standout — served in a tin styled after THE WHOO's Cheongidan Advanced Rejuvenating Pro-Radiance Cream, meant to be spread over the other sweets. It's joined by a gardenia and ginseng panna cotta, a chrysanthemum macaron, a red date cupcake, sea salt caramel with gold praline, and a sesame Italian gelato to close things out — eleven items in total.
Two bespoke mocktails are available to pair: the Goji-Date Infusion (red date and goji berry syrup with English breakfast tea) and the Root & Petal Fizz (gardenia and ginseng syrup with citrus and soda). Guests can also opt for a selection of premium coffees or fine teas instead.
The take-home gift — and why it's there
Every guest who orders the Luminous Glow Afternoon Tea receives a complimentary THE WHOO Cheongidan 5A Discovery Set, valued at HK$130, along with a voucher for a facial massage and a shopping offer. It's the clearest sign of the collaboration's real purpose — less a one-off novelty tea and more a soft-launch sampling exercise for THE WHOO's Cheongidan line, run through one of Tsim Sha Tsui's better-known hotel dining rooms.
Cucina itself is worth the visit independent of the tie-in: the restaurant holds a Forbes Travel Guide Four-Star rating and looks out over 180 degrees of Victoria Harbour, a rare vantage point for a hotel restaurant on the Kowloon side.
Cucina, Marco Polo Hongkong Hotel
Dress code is smart casual; closed-toed shoes and sleeved shirts are required for gentlemen. Book ahead, especially for weekend slots.
Getting there
Marco Polo Hongkong Hotel sits inside the Harbour City complex on Canton Road, a roughly 10-minute walk from both Tsim Sha Tsui Station (Exit C1) and East Tsim Sha Tsui Station (Exit L5) — factor in extra time to cut through the mall itself. For more Tsim Sha Tsui dining options, see our guide to Hong Kong's best Japanese restaurants, several of which sit in the same neighbourhood.
Frequently Asked Questions
Worth knowing
The Luminous Glow Afternoon Tea runs through 30 September 2026 at Cucina, Marco Polo Hongkong Hotel — eleven Italian bites built around Korean skincare ingredients, a harbour view, and a take-home gift worth HK$130.