When Jimmy’s Kitchen closes its doors at the end of this month many will mourn the loss of one of Hong Kong’s oldest and most storied restaurants. Indeed, the 92-year-old Central eatery was set to close in April but was given a month’s reprieve following a surge of interest from patrons who wanted to dine at Jimmy’s one last time.
“The response has been so overwhelming we have extended the closure into May,” says Epicurean Group’s food and beverage director Anthony Russell-Clark.
Even if you haven’t dined at Jimmy’s Kitchen, you’ll likely be familiar with its large neon-lit sign at the bottom of Wyndham Street. First opened in 1928, the restaurant was controlled by the Landau family until it was sold in 2002 to Sherman Tang, whose Epicurean Group also owns the historic Peak Lookout.
There is talk of Jimmy’s reopening when its management finds a suitable location, which may or may not happen. (When much-loved Central restaurant M at the Fringe closed, it too did so with the hope of reopening at a later date. That was more than 10 years ago.)
The past two decades have seen Jimmy’s slide into mediocrity, its heyday having been in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. Writer and critic Stuart Wolfendale was a junior civil servant in the late 70s and remembers “an interesting mix of clientele – Chinese and Eurasian businessmen who were used to dealing with Westerners, a lot of Shanghainese who were happy tucking into Western food, senior civil servants, senior administrators and the odd barrister.