HongKongEcho: Back to basics

HongKongEcho: It seems like coming up with a good concept is simple, and yet it’s not. What are the essentials?

Geoffrey Wu: In my mind, there are four things to get right. Food, service, ambience and price. Unfortunately not a lot of places get that right in Hong Kong. In general we advise clients to not go over-the-top with gimmicks and to stop thinking about crazy ideas to hype up the launch and so on. Ultimately it never works. We’ve done so much brainstorming with clients who want to have that ‘wow factor’ on opening night. But in the end, trust me, nothing is ever ready; the licence, the staff, whatever it might be.