Antonio Lai's Lab Bar Still Runs on Walk-Ins Only
The Earl Grey Caviar Martini put this Hollywood Road bar on the world's lists a decade ago, and Antonio Lai's rotary evaporator is still doing the work. No bookings. Arrive early or stand.
The Earl Grey Caviar Martini arrives with a spoon of tea-infused pearls sitting on a foam cap, and the drink underneath tastes exactly of what it says on the card. That precision is the whole argument. Antonio Lai has been running Quinary on Hollywood Road since 2012, with a rotary evaporator behind the bar and a caviar box in reach, and the drink that made the bar's name is still the drink that explains it.
Lai is the pioneer of molecular mixology in Hong Kong and the Diageo World Class 2015 Hong Kong & Macau Champion, and co-owner Charlene Dawes runs the room around him. Quinary landed on the World's 50 Best Bars list every year from 2013 to 2017 and again in 2021, peaking at #38 in 2013, and it was on Asia's 50 Best as recently as 2024. The pitch is multisensory — flavour, aroma, texture, appearance, sound — and the execution is straight. It is a cocktail bar that treats a cocktail as five things happening at once, and none of them slip.
The Earl Grey Caviar Martini is fourteen years old and still the most articulate drink in the room.
Editorial Deep
There is no printed cocktail list to scan, which is the first thing to understand. Everything is a signature or an off-menu build, and the correct move is to sit down and ask the bartender to walk you through it. The staff know the catalogue; the catalogue is the point.
Roughly 1,500 square feet at ground level on Hollywood Road, with about 30 seats and space for another 50 or so standing. The bar itself is long, and it extends back into Antonio Lai's lab — the rotary evaporator and the flavoured-spirit work are in the room with you, not hidden behind a service door, and that visibility is a large part of what the space does.
Post-dinner Central: industry regulars, cocktail travellers ticking off a bar list, and hotel guests sent up the hill by a concierge. Early evening from 5pm is quieter and the bartenders have time to talk you through builds properly; from around 9pm on Fridays and Saturdays the room tips into standing-room, the volume rises, and the pace shifts from conversation to holding your spot. That crowd is largely why the room works — people who know what they ordered and why — but on the busiest nights a seat at the bar is the difference between a great evening and a good one you had standing up.
Two rounds of cocktails with the Sichuan spicy chicken wings between them puts you comfortably into a real bar tab, and Quinary prints no service or tax structure that the research could confirm, so budget for a standard uplift on top. It is not cheap and it does not pretend to be.
This is a post-dinner bar and a first-drink-of-the-serious-part-of-the-night bar, not an anchor for the whole evening. Come at 5pm for a bar seat and a slow walk through three signatures with the bartender, or come after dinner in Central for one Earl Grey Caviar Martini and one more. The reason to return is that the menu is verbal and the catalogue is deep, so a second visit produces an entirely different drink list. The reason not to is if you want a printed menu, a booked table and a quiet room — Quinary is none of those things and has no intention of becoming them.
Order this
Drink this.
Earl Grey Caviar Martini; Big Spice in Little China; Sichuan spicy chicken wings to pair
“Antonio Lai's molecular bar still lands. Walk in early, sit at the counter, start with the Earl Grey Caviar Martini.”
Fourteen years in, Quinary is still the clearest argument for molecular mixology in Hong Kong — a working lab behind the bar, a verbal menu of signatures, and drinks that hold their concept from the first sip to the last. No reservations, so the seat you want is the bar counter and the time you want is early evening or straight after dinner before the standing crowd builds. Go for the Earl Grey Caviar Martini, Big Spice in Little China and whatever the bartender walks you into next. Skip if you want a printed list and a booked table.
The Verdict
