Mott32 Peking Duck – One of the best in Hong Kong

I first learned about Mott32 while researching best Peking duck places in Hong Kong. Bryan is a huge fan of Peking duck (as is evidenced by our daily consumption of the dish when we were in Beijing), and I wanted to find out the best places in Hong Kong so that we could eventually visit them.

Mott32 consistently showed up in my searches. Furthermore, local Hong Kong readers of this blog also recommended it to me, time and time again.

Though it took close to a year (!), we finally found the opportunity to take a friend there about a month ago.

Mott32 is part of Hong Kong’s Maximal Concepts restaurant group, which also oversees restaurants such as Limewood, Brickhouse, and Blue – Butcher & Meat, just to name a few. The restaurant makes what it calls “contemporary Chinese”, focusing mostly on Cantonese food but also injecting some Beijing and Szechuan dishes into the mix.

They emphasize the importance of ingredients, working closely with farms to source ingredients as ethically and sustainably as possible. All this, of course, comes at a price, and dining at this elegant restaurant is definitely a more upscale experience.

Ducks are air-dried in this custom duck oven before they are roasted. The total cooking method for the duck takes 48-hours,  which means you have to pre-order duck dishes. The restaurant roasts duck two ways: the Beijing method and the Cantonese method.

We decided to pre-order a Peking duck (must order at least 24 hours in advance).

The whole experience is quite traditional. Start by just eating the skin, dipped in raw cane sugar.

Then make “wraps” filled with their special hoisin sesame paste, scallions, and the duck.

I was extremely impressed by their homemade skins – seriously one of the best ones I’ve ever had. They were paper thin, yet strong, and had just the right chew. Totally addictive.

Mott32 says they carve and present their ducks using a traditional “royal cut” alongside carefully crafted ingredients to accompany the meat.

We even impressed by the little things, like how the server was able to swirl the two sauces together table side to form these beautiful concentric circles.

It goes without saying that if you have room to order anything else, definitely get their signature charsiu. It’s probably the best one I’ve ever had in Hong Kong (to date!).

Fried rice with fish + fish roe was solid and served as as more interesting version of rice for the table.

Baby bok choy stir fried with garlic was expertly done.

Stir fried long beans was also delicious.

Mott32 Peking Duck – General Thoughts

We’ve tried a lot of good Peking duck throughout Hong Kong, including at historic Peking Garden, Maxim Group’s M&C Duck, 1-Michelin starred Man Wah in the Mandarin Oriental, and Alvin Leung’s (of Bo Innovation Fame) Forbidden Duck.

Right now, the winner in my book is Mott32. Their ducks are superb and those skins have amazing texture. Additionally, the rest of their food is excellent too, so you don’t have to just eat duck (nice to have variety!).

In fact, Mott32 has LOTS of other non-duck dishes. Their dim sum lunch is creative and excellent, and the menu has a lot of great choices, such as the must-order Iberico charsiu BBQ pork (so good!).  All in all, it’s an excellent restaurant, which is why it’s one of my top choices for places to bring people when they visit Hong Kong.

Mott32 Hong Kong
Standard Chartered Bank Building
4-4A Des Voeux Rd Central, Central

This is the seventh post in the updated #50Postsin50Days – Take 2 Challenge. Other posts in this series will be added to the bottom of the original post.