Juno

Focaccia at the start of the pass

Rosemary focaccia is made in the house, and it opens the meal. Chef Jordi Vallés Claverol, originally from Barcelona, runs the kitchen at Juno in Sheung Wan, Hong Kong, and also operates the sister restaurant Chueca. The frame at Juno is Italian-Mediterranean rather than Italian: olive oil, vegetables, seafood, poultry, pasta, rice and shared plates, drawn from the founders’ travels through Italy and the wider Mediterranean. The stated mission is access, serious cooking at prices that do not require an occasion, with lunch at HKD208 and a tasting menu around HKD538, and Michelin answered with a Bib Gourmand in 2025. On the bench that translates into ordinary problems handled well. Pasta has to hold. Rice has to absorb. The grill has to leave enough bitterness in a vegetable for it to speak.

Rice, short noodles and the charcoal line

The programme works by accumulation rather than ceremony. A meal begins with the focaccia and moves into small plates in the cicchetti, tapas and mezze register: 48-month Ibérico ham, bacalao croquettes with citrus mayo, padrón peppers deep-fried and blistered and salted, charcoal peperonata. Acquerello rice sets the standard for the risotti, an aged Carnaroli chosen for absorption, and the lobster version has to carry shellfish depth without loosening the grain past its point. Truffle tagliolini asks for restraint, because the noodle is the structure and truffle can easily become the whole sentence. A truffled Angus beef cheek risotto covers the heavier register. Seafood fideos move toward Spain, short noodles and shrimp intensity rather than the creamier pull of rice. Milk-fed lamb comes two ways, charcoal-grilled or slow-cooked as a ballotine à la Provençale, and Cote d’Azur seabass is baked to a crisp skin. Tiramisu or a raspberry chocolate coulant closes.

Mint green at street level

The room keeps the craft close to the street. A mint green façade opens into a bright interior of wood, marble and travertine, finished enough for the tasting menu and relaxed enough for shared plates to feel natural. The sound stays conversational, which changes how the pass reads from a table: you can follow bread, fritter, pasta, rice and grill without the room turning theatrical. That restraint suits Sheung Wan. Juno is not a trattoria replica and not a tapas bar in costume; it uses both registers as working methods. It is also not the French dining room that once carried the name Juno in Wan Chai, now called Junon. Vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free versions run through the same menu rather than beside it, and the wine list stays affordable, drawn from France, Spain and Puglia.

A bistro measured by absorption

The dishes carrying the house identity are already on the table, so there is little to defer. Whether the rice keeps its shape, whether the focaccia tears cleanly, whether charcoal-grilled eggplant holds smoke without collapse: that is the test, and it is answered nightly in a room that fills on weekdays. Claverol’s argument sits in the grain. Acquerello rice is where patience becomes visible at Juno.