22 Ships

Wan Chai, the location of Louvre’s Hong Kong office, is home to hundreds of restaurants, noodle bars and burger joints but it’s a small tapas bar that’s our current favourite. 

22 Ships is one of two Hong Kong restaurants from British chef Jason Atherton. It arrived in 2012 on a wave of Spanish-inspired openings but, unlike many others, it has lasted the distance. No mean feat in a city where it’s hard to keep up with restaurants opening and closing down.

Our advice is to grab some seats at the bar so you can watch the chefs in action. We grazed on some marinated olives while we waited for our dishes to arrive and enjoyed a few cervezas.

The tapas menu isn’t huge but is nicely balanced between meat, seafood and vegetable dishes.

We loved the jamón, Manchego and truffle toastie which is a Spanish take on a cheese and ham toasted sandwich, topped with a fried quail’s egg – refined comfort food. Octopus with chilli, garlic and coriander had a great kick but I have to confess the meat dishes were our favourite. 

Baby chicken with chorizo was picante and the white pork and foie gras burger was rich and very satisfying, as was a deliciously tender, and generously sized, lamb dish. 

We also enjoyed the salt-baked beetroot with goat’s cheese and a pile of delicate, paper-thin Serrano ham hid peas and broad beans with mint. Specials are always good too – it’s hard not to be greedy here, but sharing a good selection of dishes between four of you is the best way to try a lot of the flavours.

There are only 35 seats and 22 Ships does not take reservations so you may have to wait, but in our experience it will be worth it.

22 Ships, 22 Ship Street, Wan Chai, Hong Kong.