FUMI crafts complete Japanese experiences for diners

Source: FUMI Facebook page. FUMI sushi.

Japanese restaurant FUMI aims to bring the best of Japanese food to Hong Kong in a space filled with Japanese-inspired art, furniture and tableware. A variety of meals will be served, from multi-course omakase and kaiseki dinners to àla carte dishes and set lunches.

Located in California Tower, FUMI has exclusive access to the best seasonal ingredients from Japan, flown daily to Hong Kong and delivered straight to FUMI’s kitchen. Often served to diners mere hours after being plucked from the Japanese soil or sea, these ingredients will appear in FUMI’s sushi, sashimi, omakase and kaiseki dishes, as well as on a variety of seasonal menus.

FUMI’s seasonal menus will highlight the unique dishes and cooking techniques found in different prefectures of Japan and feature dishes never served before in Hong Kong. FUMI’s team will devise some of these seasonal menus, but others will be created and presented by celebrity Japanese guest chefs.

“Omakase” roughly translates as “I’ll leave it up to you”, indicating that the diner leaves the choice of dishes totally in the hands of the chef. Rarely written down, omakase menus change daily depending on what ingredients have been delivered to the chef that morning.

FUMI’s kaiseki menu will also be regularly updated to feature seasonal ingredients. FUMI’s kaiseki experience also showcases Japanese craftsmanship, with each course meticulously presented on tableware handmade by artisans around Japan. There are several kaiseki menus, with highlight dishes featuring the liver of the angler fish; oden, a hotpot-style dish with a broth made from two different types of katsuobushi (bonito flakes); and unusually thick slices of A4 Miyazaki beef sirloin steak served with homemade sukiyaki sauce, Japanese-style poached egg, zucchini, grilled tofu, small onion, shiitake mushroom and mini tomato.

Signature ala carte dishes include fresh soy milk skin and sea urchin with wasabi starchy soy sauce, prime sea urchin sushi trio and Miyazaki beef tenderloin tartar.

FUMI’s rooms draw upon the best of traditional Japanese crafts and contemporary design. VIP rooms are separated from the main space by classical bamboo screens and other tables will be divided by washi laminated resin panels made in Japan. A traditional sushi counter, with fresh seafood laid out on ice, will run along one wall of the restaurant. FUMI’s designers have also created a Japanese zen garden on the restaurant’s balcony.

Through food and drink, FUMI hopes to educate diners about Japanese culture and traditions, the variety of food found around Japan and how Japanese cuisine has developed over time. Planned activities include marking traditional Japanese holidays with cultural menus and Japanese dance performances, Japanese calligraphy demonstrations, and talks about Japanese food culture.

This desire to celebrate the broader culture of each prefecture is behind FUMI’s name. In Japanese, the written character “ 文 ”, which is pronounced as “fumi" in English, forms part of the Japanese and Chinese word for culture, “文化”.

Details:

FUMI is at 6/F, California Tower,
Lan Kwai Fong, 30-36 D'Aguilar St,
Central, Hong Kong.
For reservations, call +852 2328 3302 

Hashtag: #FUMI

Shilla Duty Free opens six retail stores at HKIA

The Shilla Duty Free has begun operations at Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) after its successful bid on the perfume and cosmetics, and fashion accessories concessions earlier this year. Six temporary retail outlets opened for business on 12 December 2017. The move follows the November opening of the Shilla Duty Free’s 1,375 sq m T4 main store at Singapore Changi Airport.

Source: Shilla Duty Free. The Shilla Duty Free has unveiled six temporary retail stores inside Hong Kong International Airport. Store exterior. 

Source: Shilla Duty Free. The Shilla Duty Free has unveiled six temporary retail stores inside Hong Kong International Airport. Store interior. 

The Hong Kong license marks Shilla as the first operator to simultaneously secure duty free perfumes and cosmetics concessions across the major hub airports of Incheon International, Hong Kong International and Singapore Changi. 

Shilla also introduced a new vision for experiential retail - Beauty&You. Outlets will be transformed in phases into the new identity, with a grand opening slated for the summer of 2018. In Singapore, the T4 store features high ceilings and spaciousness to foster more creativity in the designs of the brand counters. Large digital screens have been incorporated into the walls and pillars in order to amplify the key branding messages and promotions.

Beauty&You presents a new retail concept for HKIA, combining innovative store designs with a wide array of products, excellent service and exciting activities to delight guests at every stage of their shopping journey. The new Beauty&You store layout will incorporate both branded counters and non-branded areas, as well as immersive engagement zones. At the same time, the number of brands featured across the six stores at HKIA will eventually increase to over 200. 

“We’re extremely excited to expand The Shilla Duty Free network to one of the busiest airports in the world,” says Alice Woo, MD, Shilla Travel Retail Hong Kong. “The airport served more than 70 million passengers annually and 1,100 aircraft daily in the past 12 months. Hong Kong’s proximity to other Asian countries and mainland China also makes HKIA a powerful and promising hub for duty free sales.

"With the upcoming launch of Beauty&You, we hope to redefine the airport retail experience and customer journey through personalised service, interactive and engaging environment in one of the most robust travel markets in the world.”

Hong Leong Group to site global HQ at Damansara City

Source: Damansara City website.

GuocoLand Malaysia's flagship development, Damansara City, has been chosen as the future home for the Hong Leong Group’s global headquarters. The 33-storey Grade-A office tower block in the southwest (direction) end of the iconic development, will be the star anchor tenant within Damansara City once it is fully occupied by the end of second quarter next year.

The Hong Leong Group is a major conglomerate based in Malaysia, with businesses in banking & financial services, manufacturing & distribution, property development & investment, hospitality & leisure, and principal investment. The Group controls listed companies with hundreds of operating subsidiaries and associate companies in North and Southeast Asia, Western Europe and the UK, as well as North America and Oceania.

Damansara City is an integrated city development consisting of two Grade-A office towers; two towers of luxury residences known as DC Residency; an F&B-centric lifestyle mall; and a 5-star hotel.

GuocoLand expects Damansara City to have an initial traffic of 10,000 people daily working within the integrated development and average another 6,000 visitors when it is fully operational by mid 2016. The future development of surrounding areas is expected to enhance the foot traffic within the area and further increase the demand for and the valuation of Damansara City’s units in both the residential and commercial towers.

Office Tower A’s 530,000 sq ft of usable area will be progressively handed over to various operating companies within the Hong Leong Group in coming months. “This announcement reinforces the position of Damansara City as the heart of a leading new business district in the Greater Kuala Lumpur and Damansara Height’s community. It underscores our unique combination of factors that sets us apart and has spurred both investor and corporate interest in the project to date.

"This includes our location within the exclusive enclave of Damansara Heights which is mere minutes away from Bangsar, the KL city centre, the KL Sentral transportation hub and other established townships; the highest levels of seamless integration between our corporate, residency and hospitality facilities; the onsite presence of a refined and curated lifestyle mall; and accessibility through multiple road systems and the soon to be completed MRT line,” said Tan Lee Koon, Managing Director of GuocoLand.

Damansara City, with a gross development value of RM2.5 billion, is an entry point project (EPP) under Malaysia’s Economic Transformation Programme. It has been identified as a key component and driver of one the fastest growing business districts in the Greater Kuala Lumpur area with strong and growing interest from buyers and tenants across South East Asia.

The office spaces at Damansara City are setting a new benchmark, not just in the Damansara Heights and greater Kuala Lumpur areas but from the regional property market. Strong regional demand for both its commercial and living spaces is being driven especially by Damansara City’s strategic location in Damansara Heights and office towers, which are MSC-status ready developments that comply with the Green Building Index (GBI) Certified rating; the Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) Gold rating; and CONQUAS Quality Assessment for its building construction works.

Hong Leong Group is the first of several prominent brands that are moving their corporate headquarters to Damansara City. DC Mall, the soon to be opened lifestyle and F&B heart of Damansara City is also seeing strong demand for its space. It has already secured in-principle agreements with some well known local and international brands for half its lettable space as well.