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The restaurant that Hong Kong dining scene stars have in common

Japanese restaurant Zuma boasts impressive alumni – think Yardbird and Pirata Group co-founders – and its success stems from its commitment to employee development

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Some of the biggest names in Hong Kong’s food industry have passed through its doors. So, what’s Zuma’s secret? Photo: Jocelyn Tam

Published: 12:45pm, 26 Feb 2025

I’m sitting with Jean Marc Petrus on the upper floor of Zuma Hong Kong when, midway through our conversation, a war cry emanates from the cavernous dining room below. “That’s the rah-rah,” Zuma’s operations director for Asia says, with a slight smile and ears perked.

It marks the end of the pre-service briefing, when the teams talk each other up, “like you do before a football match”, he says, and it’s not unheard of for Zuma teams around the world to compete on their gathering calls, slapping on tables and such. “That brings the team effort, that we are a family from now until the end.”

Contemporary Japanese restaurant Zuma in London, UK, designed by architect Super Potato. Photo: Getty Images

In Hong Kong’s competitive food and beverage scene, where the average restaurant endures for just one to three years, Zuma’s resilience since its 2007 opening in The Landmark, one of the city’s priciest malls, is noteworthy. Equally impressive is the loyalty of its staff, many of whom have remained since day one – an anomaly in an industry notorious for high turnover rates.

In that time, Zuma has been the training ground for some of the most recognisable faces in Hong Kong’s food industry, including Yardbird co-founder Matt Abergel, who was Zuma’s executive chef for two years; Pirata Group co-founder Christian Talpo, formerly Zuma’s general manager; Arkadiusz Rybak, who went from bar development manager to Rosewood Hong Kong’s director of bars; and Gagan Gurung, who spent seven years climbing the ladder from waiter to assistant bar manager.

Tell Camellia co-founder Gagan Gurung worked at Zuma Hong Kong for seven years before opening his own bar. Photo: Gagan Gurung

“The secret to Zuma is consistency”, says Gurung, who later founded Zzura and Barcode and was recognised by Asia’s 50 Best Bars for another of his establishments, Tell Camellia. He recounts the launch of Zuma’s brunch menu under Talpo’s oversight, where each offering was researched and reworked extensively over one-and-a-half years before its launch.

Established by chef Rainer Becker in London in 2002, Zuma pioneered a new model of upmarket dining that glamorised the Japanese izakaya for an upwardly mobile, globe-trotting Western audience – a review in The Guardian at the time described it as “high-octane, high-energy, high-worth” for a “Sex and the City clientele”. Becker, who spent six years in Tokyo, was inspired by the izakaya’s informal, food-centric approach to socialising, as well as inakaya restaurants, which serve robatayaki skewers of meat, seafood and vegetables, all grilled over an open fire.