When a Record-Shop Owner Discovers Texan Smoke in Hong Kong Flavours

A Conversion Over Brisket

Picture this: a London scenester who spent fifteen years selling second-hand records to the city's DJ community walks into a poker tournament in Austin and leaves with an entirely new vocation. That was Man Hon Luk's trajectory in 2021, when a meal at InterStellar BBQ became something closer to a spiritual awakening. The pitmaster there, John Bates, introduced him not just to smoked meat but to the ritual around it, the ceremony of low-and-slow that turns cooking into a form of patient devotion.

At Global Chic Voyage, we've watched chefs cross-pollinate culinary traditions for years, but there's something particularly compelling about someone who arrives at food from a completely different world. Luk didn't grow up dreaming of kitchens; he built his reputation curating sound, not flavour. Yet the discipline required to run a beloved record shop and the attention to detail that makes a great DJ translates, it turns out, beautifully to the exacting standards of Texan barbecue.

After training in the States, Luk returned to London with new skills and an unusual idea: what if you applied that smoke-and-time methodology to the flavours of Hong Kong? The pop-ups came first, then a two-year residency in Hackney Wick, and finally, following a crowdfunding campaign that raised thirty-six thousand pounds, a permanent space above Crate Brewery. Hon's BBQ opened its doors as a full expression of that question, a restaurant where brisket technique meets Sichuan heat.

Red Walls and Rave-System Speakers

Step into the first-floor dining room and the dual identity announces itself immediately. Luk designed the space himself, pulling from two very different wells of inspiration: his Hong Kong heritage and the Hackney Wick music scene that shaped his early career. The result is a room drenched in red, vivid and energising, with custom pinwheel-patterned tables and bar stools crafted by Chinese designer Mo Tong. In the private dining area, handmade chairs and lighting come from David B Ross, a furniture maker whose workshop sits just down Hackney Road.

Some pieces carry their own history. Furniture repurposed from Silo, the site's previous occupant, nods to that restaurant's commitment to zero waste. It's a quiet gesture of continuity, a way of acknowledging the space's past while carving out something entirely new.

Then there's the sound system. The speakers were hand-built by Noise Control Audio, a company founded by veterans of Nineties rave collectives Spiral Tribe and Bedlam. Their equipment has powered stages at Glastonbury, Notting Hill Carnival, and the Roundhouse, so when Luk promises live performances and DJ sets as the evening shifts from restaurant to bar after half past nine, you know the acoustics will deliver. This is, after all, a man who understands that how a room sounds is just as important as how it tastes.

The open kitchen sits at the centre of the room, encircled by a chrome counter where diners can watch the butchering and carving happen in real time. The meat itself spends up to twelve hours in the outdoor smoker before making its way inside. That transparency is intentional, a nod to the Texan tradition where nothing is hidden and everything becomes ritual. The red walls and repurposed materials, meanwhile, tie back to the Chinese and Asian threads running through the menu. Room and food tell the same story, speaking in two accents but with a single voice.

Smoke Meets Sichuan

The menu reads like a thought experiment: what happens when you run classic Chinese dishes through the filter of a Texan barbecue pit? Meat is ordered by the gram, though there's a catch. Luk arrives each morning at five to begin smoking, and once a particular cut is gone, it's gone. Pre-ordering when you book is the safest bet, or arrive early enough to claim your share before the evening rush.

The format leans toward small plates, which means two diners can graze their way through nearly the entire menu without overcommitting. But if you're forced to choose just one dish, make it the beef short ribs with Sichuan peppercorn sauce. The meat collapses at the slightest pressure, encased in a caramelised crust spiked with chilli. Any sauce left on the plate becomes a dressing for the beef-dripping fried rice, which is exactly as decadent as it sounds.

Elsewhere, bite-sized cubes of Taiwanese pork belly arrive impossibly tender, the richness cut by wedges of fermented radish. Ox cheek, made aromatic with five-spice, carries a depth that lingers. Duck, deeply flavoured from its time in the smoker, outshines the somewhat stiff pancakes it's served with. And then there's the mac and cheese, an audacious Chinese-American hybrid that somehow tastes like the best version of the boxed kind, elevated by springy cubes of smoked lap cheong sausage. It's comfort food that doesn't apologise for itself.

Vegetarians will find braised tofu, a tomato and melon salad, and cauliflower with smoked corn sauce on offer, though it's hard to escape the feeling that this isn't really their restaurant. The heart of Hon's BBQ beats in the smoker, and the menu makes no secret of where its loyalties lie.

The Towpath and the Ritual

What strikes us most about Hon's BBQ isn't just the food or the space, but the way it collapses distance. Here is a restaurant that holds Austin and Hong Kong in the same breath, that treats a record collection and a smoker with the same reverence. Luk's path to cooking was unconventional, but perhaps that's precisely why the restaurant feels so confident in its hybridity. He didn't arrive with the baggage of culinary orthodoxy; he simply followed his curiosity and built something that made sense to him.

There's a terrace at Crate Brewery, down by the towpath, where diners can finish the evening with drinks after the kitchen closes. It's the kind of detail that matters in a neighbourhood like Hackney Wick, where the line between indoors and outdoors blurs and the rhythm of the evening shifts as naturally as a DJ changing tracks. Luk understands that a great meal isn't just about what's on the plate; it's about the entire arc of the experience, from the first whiff of smoke to the last sip of a drink by the water.

We've returned to restaurants for many reasons over the years: flawless technique, impeccable service, a view that makes you forget the city outside. But the places that stay with us longest are the ones that feel like they couldn't exist anywhere else, that are so deeply rooted in a particular person's vision that they become unrepeatable. Hon's BBQ is one of those. It's a restaurant born from a poker game, a crowdfunding campaign, and a willingness to see what happens when you let two culinary traditions share the same smoker. The answer, as it turns out, is something worth arriving early for.