Art & Taste

Taiwanese Classics in Central: How Art & Taste Fits the Neighbourhood

Wyndham Street in Central sits at the lower edge of Hong Kong's steepest dining gradient. Walk uphill and the price tier rises quickly — Michelin three-star Italian at 8½ Otto e Mezzo Bombana and three-star French at Caprice are a short taxi ride away, while Amber anchors the fine dining case for French contemporary. Art & Taste occupies a different register entirely: mid-range ($$), Taiwanese, and built around the kind of cooking where a well-made broth or a properly laminated crêpe matters more than a tasting menu format. That positioning is neither accidental nor a fallback — Central has enough trophy restaurants that a focused, affordable Taiwanese address fills a gap rather than competes with the dominant tier.

The backstory informs the kitchen's confidence. When the restaurant What to Eat shuttered in 2024, one of its owners reopened the same space at Shop A, G/F, 75-77 Wyndham Street with the same kitchen team intact. Continuity of that kind is uncommon after a closure; it also means the cooking did not restart from zero. The muscle memory for the broth, the noodle texture, the crêpe fold , all of that carried over. Chef Lukas Jakobi leads the kitchen, and the result is a Google rating of 4.1 across 63 reviews, a modest sample that nonetheless reflects a consistent reception rather than a polarised one.

The Ritual of a Taiwanese Meal: How to Eat at Art & Taste

Taiwanese dining at this register , casual, communal, ingredient-led , follows a different logic from the omakase and dégustation formats that dominate Central's upper end. The meal here is assembled by the diner rather than paced by the kitchen. That requires a small amount of deliberation at the point of ordering, and at Art & Taste the braised beef noodle soup is the decision that warrants most attention.

The signature dish offers four configurations: ribs, tendon, shank, or a mixed option combining tendon and shank. Each cut behaves differently in a long braise , ribs yield fat and collagen into the liquid while the meat stays fibrous; tendon softens to a gelatinous texture that coats the palate; shank offers a leaner, denser bite. The mixed tendon and shank option is the most common starting point for those ordering for the first time, since it balances both textural registers. What matters across all four options is the broth itself, which according to the venue's recognised description carries deep flavour into the noodles , the noodles described as bouncy in texture, a term in Taiwanese cooking that refers to a specific springy resistance achieved through the dough formulation and pull technique rather than overcooking. Getting that texture right on a Taiwanese noodle is a technical baseline; it is what separates a kitchen doing this seriously from one treating it as a side dish.

The cheese and egg crêpe is a separate register , lighter, street-food adjacent, the kind of item that travels well between lunch and a mid-afternoon stop. In Taiwan, egg crêpes of this style are a fixture of breakfast stalls and night markets, often made to order on a flat iron and eaten folded. Bringing that format into a Central restaurant without reducing it to a novelty item takes some execution discipline. At Art & Taste it has earned the designation of highlight alongside the noodle soup, which means both dishes are pulling their weight within the same menu.

Practical sequencing of a meal here follows Taiwanese convention: noodle soup as the anchor, small bites distributed before or alongside, crêpe as a lighter counterpoint or a standalone order. The kitchen's range of Taiwanese classics and small bites beyond these two signature items offers room to expand the order, though the two named dishes are the reference points against which the rest of the menu should be tested on a first visit.

Where Art & Taste Sits in the Broader Taiwanese Dining Scene

Taiwanese cuisine in Hong Kong occupies a smaller footprint than Cantonese, Shanghainese, or Japanese cooking, which means the reference set for assessing a place like Art & Taste is limited locally but more instructive when mapped across the wider region. In Taipei, the spectrum runs from casual braised pork rice shops through to ambitious destination restaurants. Venues like Fujin Tree Taiwanese Cuisine & Champagne and Mountain and Sea House represent the higher-concept end of the tradition, while Shin Yeh Taiwanese Signature and Ming Fu sit closer to the classics-first approach. Golden Formosa, Mipon, 3927, and YUENJI in Taichung each represent different points on that continuum. Art & Taste, operating in Central Hong Kong at mid-range pricing with a tight focus on well-executed staples, belongs to the classics-first school , the kind of address where the quality argument is made through the soup and not through the concept.

Within Hong Kong itself, the frame shifts. Taiwanese restaurants here tend to occupy neighbourhood positions rather than destination status. Places like Tai Tsai in Tsuen Wan and Yuan is Here in the Western District point to how Taiwanese cooking distributes across the city's different zones. Art & Taste's location in Central is a geographic outlier within that pattern , a Taiwanese kitchen operating where the dominant conversation is about fine dining and international formats. That specificity of location is worth noting for anyone planning a broader day in the area: it sits within walking distance of the main Wyndham Street dining strip, accessible without diverting significantly from the neighbourhood's other food and drink options.

Planning Your Visit

Art & Taste is at Shop A, G/F, 75-77 Wyndham Street, Central. The price range sits at mid-range ($$), which positions it clearly below the $$$$ tier that defines much of Central's better-known dining. Booking details and current hours are not listed in the EP Club database at the time of writing, so confirming availability directly before visiting is advisable, particularly for lunch slots on weekdays when the Wyndham Street corridor draws office crowds. The address is the same one occupied by What to Eat before its 2024 closure, so the location is established within the neighbourhood rather than new to it.

For a fuller picture of where to eat, drink, and stay in the city, see our full Hong Kong restaurants guide, our full Hong Kong bars guide, our full Hong Kong hotels guide, our full Hong Kong wineries guide, and our full Hong Kong experiences guide.