A quieter week for headline count, but not for ambition. Most of the names doing the rounds in Hong Kong's August "new restaurant" round-ups — Yusang, Taekwang Steel, Canto Jade, Mother Pearl, Draft Land x nodi, Brentwood Coffee Roaster's Cochrane Street branch, Quan, Il Presidente and more — checked out as already covered elsewhere on this site once we verified them against primary sources and grepped our own archive, so they're not repeated here. What's genuinely new this week: an almost impossible-to-book Chinese omakase counter tucked into a Sheung Wan shophouse, a heritage-building bistro in Mei Foo few tourists will stumble on, K11 MUSEA's sprawling new Japanese all-rounder, and a 29th-floor Cantonese newcomer with the harbour as its view, preparing to open in Tsim Sha Tsui.
1. Yun — Sheung Wan
Hong Kong's hardest booking this month, not that you'd know it from the shopfront. Yun (筳) opened quietly on Hollywood Road in Sheung Wan this August, with no grand-opening fanfare, just an open kitchen behind an unassuming G/F door. It's overseen by Taiwanese chef Shih Ching-Hui, formerly of Taipei's two-Michelin-starred Yu Kapo, who runs a 2.5-hour lunch and dinner omakase built around ultra-premium seafood — think chilled mantis shrimp with sea urchin and lotus glutinous rice with red flower crab, in the style of sister concept Quan. The catch: you must be a seafood eater, a non-refundable 50% deposit is required at booking, and diners can only book once every three months. Word has clearly travelled — the restaurant is already fully booked through November.
Yun
Diners must be seafood eaters and can book only once every three months; already fully booked through November 2026 at the time of writing. Wine list is unusually deep for a Chinese fine-diner. Book via the venue's Instagram-linked reservation link.
2. Backyard Bistro — Mei Foo
Fine dining logic, cottage-garden setting. Backyard Bistro soft-opened on 4 August inside Jao Tsung-I Academy, a century-old heritage compound in Mei Foo better known for calligraphy exhibitions than dinner reservations. Run by the team behind Kowloon City's cosy Nan Kok café, it serves a three-course all-day tasting menu that blends Western technique with seasonal local ingredients — fettuccine with fermented bean curd and pan-fried scallop, and a grilled Sichuan pesto chicken among the standouts. It's a genuinely unusual setting for a bistro: expect courtyard views and a slower pace than most Hong Kong openings this size.
Backyard Bistro
Contact via WhatsApp on 6876 5284. Jao Tsung-I Academy itself is worth the detour — a Qing dynasty-era quarantine station turned cultural centre, with courtyard gardens free to wander before or after your meal.
3. AOI by KAIYŌ — Tsim Sha Tsui
KAIYŌ's louder, larger little sibling. AOI by KAIYŌ opened 20 August on the 4th floor of K11 MUSEA in Tsim Sha Tsui, sitting alongside its established namesake izakaya KAIYŌ within the Gaia Group portfolio. Despite a compact footprint, the menu runs to more than 100 dishes across 20 categories — sashimi, sushi, stone-pot rice, tempura and sukiyaki all get a look-in — with a run of visually showy signatures: caviar jewellery boxes, layered crystal cups of seasonal seafood, and a premium uni, caviar and toro sushi napoleon.
AOI by KAIYŌ
Open daily 11am–11pm. Phone 9072 0015. Sister restaurant KAIYŌ, an upscale organic-food izakaya, is a short walk away in the same mall if you want to compare the two concepts in one visit.
4. Canton Library — Tsim Sha Tsui (opening imminently)
A 29th-floor Cantonese reinvention, with a harbour view thrown in. Aqua Restaurant Group is transforming its former Italian restaurant Vista, on the top floor of One Peking in Tsim Sha Tsui, into Canton Library — a contemporary southern Chinese restaurant scheduled to open in the second week of September 2026. The kitchen is led by executive chef Junno Li, who also heads the food programme at Aqua's The Chinese Library at Tai Kwun, with dim sum overseen by chef Leung Kwok-wa. The concept leans into the wider Lingnan region rather than Cantonese cuisine alone — drawing on Guangdong, Guangxi, Chaoshan, Hakka, Hong Kong, Macau, Hainanese and southern Vietnamese influences.
Canton Library
Phone 2982 0628. Exact opening date to be confirmed at time of writing — worth calling ahead before making the trip up to the 29th floor.
This week's openings at a glance
| Venue | Area | Type | Price guide | Nearest MTR |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yun | Sheung Wan | Modern Chinese omakase | HK$2,000pp | Sheung Wan |
| Backyard Bistro | Mei Foo | All-day bistro | From HK$128pp | Mei Foo |
| AOI by KAIYŌ | Tsim Sha Tsui | Japanese all-rounder | HK$128–198 per dish | Tsim Sha Tsui / East TST |
| Canton Library | Tsim Sha Tsui | Contemporary Cantonese | Not yet published | Tsim Sha Tsui / East TST |
Details verified against Foodie (aFoodieWorld), Time Out Hong Kong, OpenRice and each venue's own channels, August 2026. Several other names doing the rounds this week — Yusang, Taekwang Steel, Canto Jade, Mother Pearl, Quan and Il Presidente among them — were checked and found to already have dedicated coverage elsewhere on this site, so they're not repeated here. Opening hours, menus and Canton Library's exact launch date can shift in the weeks after this was published — confirm before you go.
Where to find more openings
This hit-list is the fast version; the deeper dives live elsewhere on the site. For the full month's intake, see our running list of new restaurant openings in Hong Kong, catch up on our previous edition of this weekly hit-list, and browse the Hong Kong venue directory for hundreds of restaurants, bars and cafés with new arrivals added all the time.
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