Cleverly executed retro is always worth another look. We do like Mr Ming’s Chinese Dining, a restaurant that is part of the Ming Fat House cluster of restaurants that also includes Mrs. Pound, Dr. Fern’s, Foxglove, Frank’s Library and Eat Darling Eat.
Eat Darling Eat may ring a bell for our readers as we covered the dessert bar a while ago.
All of the Ming Fat restaurant concepts are the creation of Hong Kong-based Nelson Chow of NC Design & Architecture. Chow graduated in architecture from The University of Waterloo (Canada) in 2004 and completed a Menswear Tailoring Certificate at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City in 2005. As is much of his work, all of the Ming Fat restaurant concepts are heavily based on storytelling.
In the case of Mr Ming’s Chinese Dining there is a fictional Mr. Ming who is an arts enthusiast and collector of coins and vintage cars. In the design, there are several references to movies, coins and coin wrappers, car seats and car paraphernalia.
There are also nods toward summer cottages from the 70s and speakeasies from earlier times. Chow drew inspiration also from movies and entertainment including Shanghainese singer Yao Lee, and Hong Kong film director, Wong Kar-Wai.
Mr Ming’s upper level faces the HK 11 Art Mall and features warm wood tones and rattan furnishings, woven-grass wallpaper and deep turquoise accents The lower level faces the garden and continues the same themes with more of a speakeasy feel with strong mineral-blue accents, brass fittings and plush velvet. Nearly all of the pieces from furniture to terracotta tiles and art pieces are custom-designed for the restaurant. Tuija Seipell.
Images by Harold De Puymorin