May Chow is sending "Beef Noodle" Fries into The Lobby Lounge at Regent Hong Kong: crispy chips tossed in double-fermented soy sauce, caramelised Brandt beef and ghost pepper hot sauce, served during a 2 to 31 October 2026 run. Little Bao Regent Hong Kong is Chow’s Hong Kong at Heart residency at The Lobby Lounge, created with Regent Hong Kong executive chef Calvin Choi and paired with Dom Pérignon White Luminous Vintage 2015. Six signature creations, a harbour-facing room, and a chef who has spent more than a decade pushing Hong Kong flavours through the bao format (Regenthotels2).
Chow established Little Bao in 2013. Since then, the restaurant has worked a recognisable piece of hand food into a wider language, borrowing the shape of an American burger and setting it inside a steamed bun. Pork belly, fried chicken and mushrooms have all sat in that frame. At Regent Hong Kong, Chow and Choi move the method into a hotel lounge whose windows look across Victoria Harbour, with Champagne placed beside satay, fermented bean curd, chenpi, mushrooms and beef.
Little Bao Regent Hong Kong: The Hong Kong at Heart Residency
Hong Kong at Heart brings chef-owner May Chow and executive chef Calvin Choi together for a month-long Little Bao residency at The Lobby Lounge. The dates matter. From 2 to 31 October 2026, the menu exists as a fixed-window collaboration rather than a permanent branch or a standard hotel afternoon tea. For diners who follow Hong Kong chefs across formats, that short run is part of the draw; Chow’s kitchen language meets Choi’s hotel station, then the room moves on.
The Lobby Lounge gives the work a particular frame. Its windows look across Victoria Harbour, which changes the way familiar references land. A bao picked up by hand, a shared plate of fries, a glass of Dom Pérignon White Luminous Vintage 2015 on the table: none of that belongs to one register of dining. Chow’s work has often lived in the space between registers. Little Bao keeps its casual hand-held form, then folds in ingredients and cues that shift the expectation of what a bao can carry.
Choi’s role matters because hotel collaborations can flatten a guest chef’s work if the host kitchen treats the residency as a logo exercise. Here, the named collaboration sits with the hotel’s executive chef, not an anonymous banquet team. Chow brings the Little Bao method; Choi anchors it inside Regent Hong Kong’s kitchen and service rhythm. That is the practical craft of a residency, where the idea has to survive prep, pickup, Champagne service and a month of repeat execution.
Gon chow ngau ho, satay beef noodles, char siu, dim sum memory, put chai ko, cha chaan teng habits: the residency draws from foods Hong Kong diners know in the hand, the steam, the wok note, the sweetness, the chew. Chow does not reproduce those dishes as museum pieces. She and Choi use the reference, then change the form.
May Chow’s Bao Menu Meets Dom Pérignon
Chow was voted Asia’s Best Female Chef in 2017, but the credential carries less weight here than the way she uses a steamed bun as a working tool. The bao format lets her compress a memory into layers: bun, filling, sauce, acid, heat, texture. At Regent Hong Kong, that method meets Dom Pérignon White Luminous Vintage 2015 through joint tastings involving Chow, Choi and the Dom Pérignon team (Discoverhongkong3).
The line between street food and Champagne is not treated as a stunt. Chow puts the pairing directly: "I want people to realise that Hong Kong's street flavours can sit proudly alongside the world's greatest wines." said May Chow.1 The sentence gives the residency its spine. It is not asking bao to become French, or Champagne to become casual. It asks what happens when both stay themselves at the same table.
The clearest dish may be the "Beef Noodle" Fries. The reference is gon chow ngau ho, the Cantonese beef and flat rice noodle dish associated with hard heat and wok work. Chow and Choi remove the noodles. Crispy chips take their place, tossed with double-fermented soy sauce, caramelised Brandt beef and ghost pepper hot sauce. The dish keeps the beef-noodle memory through salt, soy, meat and heat, then changes the delivery system completely.
The Satay Beef Short Rib Bao works from another everyday Hong Kong reference. Instead of the usual thin slices of beef in satay beef noodles, the bao uses slow-cooked short rib, peanut-satay sauce and compressed pineapple. The structure is compact: fat and muscle from the short rib, nut depth from the satay, fruit acid from the pineapple. It reads like Little Bao’s usual hand-held discipline, with the filling carrying the memory rather than copying the original bowl.
The vegetarian "Char Siu" Bao moves toward dim sum. Celeriac and black termite mushrooms stand in for meat, with fermented red bean curd glaze bringing the red, savoury-sweet cue associated with char siu. That glaze is doing cultural work as much as flavour work. It tells the diner where the dish is pointing before the texture finishes the argument.
Six Signature Creations, Cocktails, and the Hand-Held Method
The Regent Hong Kong menu includes six signature creations, each paired with Dom Pérignon White Luminous Vintage 2015. The number gives the residency a tight working field. Six dishes are enough to move through beef, mushroom, soy, satay, chenpi, mochi and fried bao without turning the room into a catalogue. For a kitchen, six also means repetition; the station has to learn the folds, the sauces, the timing of hot and cold, and the pace at which Champagne reaches the table.
Dessert keeps the same translation method. Little Bao’s "Put Chai Ko" Ice Cream Bao pairs fried bao with chenpi-glazed red beans, salted ice cream and handmade mochi. Fried bao brings heat and crispness. Salted ice cream cools it. Mochi adds chew. Chenpi, the dried citrus peel that appears often in Cantonese cooking, sits with the red beans and gives the sweetness a sharper edge.
The cocktails follow the food’s cross-border grammar. Tiki Bao combines Moutai Prince with rum, Madeira, walnut, pineapple and citrus. Steam Vista brings Huadiao wine together with rye whiskey, vermouth, peach, jasmine and elderflower tonic. Those builds matter because they do not simply sit beside the Champagne program. They extend the same question into the bar: what happens when Chinese drinking references meet fortified wine, whiskey, fruit and tonic structure?
For a practitioner, the interest is in how many points of pressure the menu carries. Bao are eaten by hand, so the filling cannot collapse the bun. A fried bao dessert has to hold heat while ice cream softens. Chips tossed in double-fermented soy sauce need seasoning without losing the crisp edge. A Champagne pairing has to survive ghost pepper hot sauce, peanut-satay sauce, fermented red bean curd and chenpi. The work is in keeping each dish legible after those collisions.
Little Bao’s two Hong Kong locations give the residency a bench outside the hotel. Chow’s Central address is 1-3 Shin Hing Street, Central, Hong Kong Island. The Causeway Bay address is Shop H1, G/F, 9 Kingston Street, Fashion Walk, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong Island. Those rooms are the everyday reference point for diners who know the brand; Regent Hong Kong becomes the October extension, not the origin (Discoverhongkong3).
One Month, One Harbour Room, One Champagne Thread
Hong Kong at Heart runs from 2 to 31 October 2026, which gives the collaboration a defined service life. The kitchen has one month to repeat the gesture; the diner has one month to catch Chow and Choi’s version of Little Bao Regent Hong Kong before that menu leaves The Lobby Lounge.
Chow brings a Little Bao language built since 2013. Choi brings the executive chef’s responsibility for a Regent Hong Kong room facing Victoria Harbour. The Dom Pérignon team sits inside the development through joint tastings, with Dom Pérignon White Luminous Vintage 2015 threaded across six signature creations. For collectors who pay attention to Champagne outside the expected pairings, the tension sits in the pantry: soy fermentation, beef, mushroom, satay, pineapple, chenpi and chili heat.
Double-fermented soy sauce on chips. Ghost pepper hot sauce against caramelised Brandt beef. Peanut-satay sauce and compressed pineapple inside a short rib bao. Celeriac, black termite mushrooms and fermented red bean curd glaze in a vegetarian char siu reading. Huadiao wine, rye whiskey, vermouth, peach, jasmine and elderflower tonic in Steam Vista.
For Hong Kong diners, the room adds another layer. Victoria Harbour gives the meal a view while the menu points back to streets, cafes, dim sum tables and late meals. The source dishes belong to daily appetite; here they are carried into a hotel lounge with glassware, shared plates and Regent Hong Kong service. That shift can sharpen the memory. The diner recognises the reference, then notices what Chow and Choi have removed, replaced or compressed.
The collaboration also sits inside a broader Hong Kong habit of absorbing outside forms without surrendering local appetite. The cha chaan teng is the easy example: macaroni, milk tea, toast, noodles and satay beef have become part of everyday Hong Kong dining. Little Bao works in that same adaptive spirit, taking a bun shaped around an American burger idea and filling it with Chinese tastes, local cues and international ingredients.
Dates, Addresses, and What to Watch Next
Hong Kong at Heart featuring Little Bao takes place at The Lobby Lounge, Regent Hong Kong, from 2 to 31 October 2026. The venue looks across Victoria Harbour, and the residency pairs Chow and Choi’s six signature creations with Dom Pérignon White Luminous Vintage 2015. The practical shape is clean: one month, one hotel lounge, one named guest chef, one named executive chef, one Champagne pairing thread.
Diners who want the Little Bao baseline can still find Chow’s own restaurants at 1-3 Shin Hing Street in Central and Shop H1, G/F, 9 Kingston Street, Fashion Walk in Causeway Bay. The hotel version carries the harbour view and Dom Pérignon pairing; the Little Bao rooms carry the longer apprenticeship of the idea, service by service, since 2013 (Discoverhongkong3).
The next thing to watch is how Chow and Choi hold the line between memory and translation across the full October run. A bao can make a point in one tasting. A residency has to repeat the gesture for a month, through shared plates, poured Champagne, fried buns, soy-tossed chips and the hands that move between the bench and the pass.
