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On Sevens weekend in Hong Kong, the energy doesn’t build; it erupts, rolling across Victoria Harbour with unmatched ferocity. The heat arrives first, thick and wet, then the humidity wraps around you like cling wrap. Then come the bodies: tens of thousands of them. Technically, you’re here for rugby. In practice, you’re here because Hong Kong in Sevens mode becomes a living organism: loud, sweltering and gloriously indulgent.
This year marks the tournament’s fiftieth anniversary. With Kai Tak Stadium now the weekend’s beating heart, everything has compressed, intensified, pulled tighter. There’s no gentle on-ramp. You clear customs and you’re already in it. Which means a triumphant weekend overall usually hinges on three things: where you sleep, where you eat, and whether you can navigate Kowloon after a full day in the stands.
B.H. Approved Hotels
Strategic accommodation is half the battle. Stay smart on the Kowloon side and you’re five minutes from Kai Tak with immediate access to the late-night street food that will, in the early hours, feel like a medical intervention. Tsim Sha Tsui delivers proximity and energy โ if youโre shooting in and out, you could even consider Sevens-adjacent Dorsett Kai Tak โ but the smarter play? Little Tai Hang in Causeway Bay.
Tucked into one of Hong Kong’s most quietly confident neighbourhoods, it offers something rare this weekend: volume control. Low-rise buildings, mechanics’ workshops sitting next to natural wine bars, locals who aren’t performing for anyone. It’s lived-in, unpolished, and refreshingly indifferent to the chaos twenty minutes away. You can rejoin the festivities on your terms.
For something more refined without sacrificing access, The Fleming in Wan Chai remains a minor masterpiece of compact design: smart bones, an MTR station one block over, enough character to feel like a choice rather than a compromise.
And for those requiring a complete sensory quarantine between matches, The Upper House operates in its own atmospheric stratum, a suspended sanctuary above Admiralty where the city becomes background noise until you’re ready to re-engage. Yes, Rosewood is deservedly the world’s best hotel at present. But unless your weekend involves actual recovery rather than costume-based fanfare, save it for a special occasion that doesn’t climax with you dressed as an inflatable dinosaur shouting at Fijians.
B.H. Approved Eating & Drinking
Eating in Hong Kong during Sevens is a contact sport. It’s also where the city reveals its entire personality in one glorious mouthful. Yardbird remains non-negotiable. The KFC โ the karaage fried cauliflower, not the colonel โ paired with a Kakubin Highball will resurrect you no matter how late your night was. But this weekend demands you lean local.
Dragon State does roast meats with the kind of precision Hong Kong reserves for things that matter: char siu blistered to the edge of burnt, duck skin that shatters, pork belly that glistens with rendered fat and wood smoke. Yat Lok is the roast goose pilgrimage, lacquered mahogany skin catching the fluorescent lights, meat so tender it barely needs teeth. The queue is long. The queue is worth it.
Chan Choi Kee, buried inside Queen Street Cooked Food Market, is pure distilled Hong Kong โ think institutional lighting, plastic stools, big wok hei energy. Order the seafood noodles. Inhale them โ feel measurably better.
Amaze Dumplings delivers consistently whenever your brain demands something hot, wrapped, and immediate. TABLE by Sandy Keung feels like someone’s very talented grandmother opened a restaurant: sophisticated Hong Kong routine thatโs Portuguese-inspired, zero shortcuts, deep respect for flavour. The signature crab arrives sticky, sweet, and messy โ the perfect cure for your frazzled state. WING remains the mythical booking, impossible this weekend, but genuinely worth discussing if you somehow secure a table.
But the real revelation is Tai Hang itself. This is where Hong Kong keeps its best secrets: neighbourhood joints, rooms the size of corridor sections, the clang of woks drifting open kitchens, crowds who don’t need validation from their phones. Moto Yakitori & Sake Bar is the standout: compact, smoke-filled, quietly exceptional. Everything else in Tai Hang rewards intuition over research. If it smells right and sounds loud, walk in. Order whatever’s being grilled.
When the volume becomes unbearable, and it will, the city presents off-ramps. RichKat Craft Brewing provides an unpretentious reset with decent beer and zero attitude. While youโre there, same for any number of drinking holes along Pottinger Street โ one of Centralโs most lively nightspots.
Cardinal Point pours clean cocktails against a skyline that does most of the conversational heavy lifting, and Mizunara: The Library in Wan Chai remains one of Hong Kong’s handsomest whisky bars, wood-panelled, amber-lit, the sort of place that feels like a reward for making it this far.
B.H. Approved Adventure
When your choices begin manifesting as physical consequences, Hong Kong’s topography becomes therapeutic. Skip the Peak Tram queue. Walk up instead. The view is better, as is the earned vertigo with a cleaner conscience to boot.
For full physiological atonement, Dragon’s Back delivers eight kilometres of ridgeline hiking and sea air, terminating at Big Wave Bay where diving into the South China Sea feels like baptism. Even a slow drift through Hong Kong Park can restore you to something approximating human.
Hong Kong doesn’t slow down. Not for tourists, not for rugby devotees, not for the thousands who arrive annually, convinced they’ll pace themselves this time. The city moves. You move with it. The Sevens just cranks everything to eleven. So embrace it. Eat boldly. Sleep strategically. Drink freely. Let Hong Kong win, because it will.
Kick off your Hong Kong Sevens experience by securing packages with Cathay Pacific below.
This article is presented in association with Hong Kong Tourism Board. Thank you for supporting the brands that support Boss Hunting.
