Twist & Buckle

Churros in Hong Kong: A Format That Has Found Its Footing

Hong Kong's street food tier has long been defined by local staples, egg waffles, fishballs, curry fish balls from dai pai dong stalls, but the past decade has seen a parallel track develop: imported single-product formats, run by operators with personal stakes in the product, earning Michelin recognition not for fine dining ambition but for doing one thing with consistency and care. Twist & Buckle, on Chatham Road South in Tsim Sha Tsui, sits firmly in that second track. Two young South Americans opened the shop with a specific focus: churros, done seriously, at street food prices.

Tsim Sha Tsui is a neighbourhood accustomed to density and contrast. The stretch of Chatham Road South running south from the main commercial grid places the shop within reach of both the tourist corridor around Nathan Road and the more residential blocks closer to the waterfront. It is an area where low-price-point operations with strong product propositions can survive on volume and word of mouth, which is exactly the model Twist & Buckle runs.

The Format: Narrow Range, Deliberate Execution

The menu does not attempt breadth. The core product is the churro: fried dough, hot, sugar-dusted, and served in its traditional cinnamon sugar form as the baseline. From there, the range extends into glazed versions and a selection of dipping accompaniments, dulce de leche and salted caramel among them, that reflect the South American provenance of the format rather than localising it into something unrecognisable.

The sundae builds, which pair churros with ice cream, represent the format's most composed tier. Across the region, Michelin's Plate designation has increasingly appeared at operations like this, street food counters and small shops where the recognition is less about technical complexity and more about product quality, consistency, and the legitimacy of the format itself.

For context on the Michelin Plate category more broadly: it sits below the star tier but above simple inclusion in the guide, and at the street food price point it carries meaningful weight. Comparable Plate-level street food operations in the wider region include Hill Street Tai Hwa Pork Noodle and A Noodle Story in Singapore, and 888 Hokkien Mee in George Town, each making a case for a single product done with focus rather than diversification.

Planning Your Visit: What to Know Before You Go

At the price point Twist & Buckle operates in, the logistics are direct in principle but worth thinking through. The address, 29-31 Chatham Road South, Tsim Sha Tsui, puts the shop in one of Hong Kong's most navigable districts, accessible via the Tsim Sha Tsui MTR station and the East Tsim Sha Tsui station. Neither phone nor website appears to be publicly listed, which means advance booking is not part of the model. This is a walk-in format, and the planning question becomes one of timing rather than reservation strategy.

Queue dynamics at high-rated single-product shops in Hong Kong tend to build during peak weekend afternoon windows and early evening. The shop's lack of a bookable reservation system is consistent with its street food positioning: this is a counter operation, not a seated dining experience requiring advance coordination.

Nearby, the Tsim Sha Tsui food corridor offers alternatives for a broader meal before or after. Cheung Hing Kee operates in the same neighbourhood and represents the local street food tradition that Twist & Buckle sits alongside. For dessert-adjacent or snack-format operations across Hong Kong, Banana Boy and Fat Boy provide reference points for how the city's informal food scene has expanded beyond traditional Cantonese formats.

The Broader Street Food Argument

What Twist & Buckle represents, taken in the context of Hong Kong's food culture, is a particular kind of import: not a franchise, not a brand extension, but a focused two-person project built around a product with deep cultural roots in South America. Churros are not new to Asia, they appear across the region in malls and theme parks, but a dedicated shop earning Michelin recognition in a city as competitive as Hong Kong makes a different argument. It says the product can hold its own on quality, not just novelty.

The single-product format has precedents across the street food tier in the region. 545 Whampoa Prawn Noodles and 91 Fried Kway Teow Mee in Singapore, or A Pong Mae Sunee in Phuket and Ah Boy Koay Teow Th'ng in George Town, each demonstrate that narrowing the menu to a single product with genuine mastery is a viable path to durability. Twist & Buckle follows the same logic applied to a South American form.

For anyone building a broader picture of Hong Kong's food scene, Beanmountain and Bánh Mì Nếm in Wan Chai illustrate how immigrant food traditions are finding footholds across different neighbourhoods and price points. Adam Rd Noo Cheng Big Prawn Noodle in Singapore adds a regional dimension to that pattern. See also our full Hong Kong restaurants guide, Hong Kong bars guide, Hong Kong hotels guide, Hong Kong wineries guide, and Hong Kong experiences guide for the full picture.