Flower Drum

There’s a small red carpet outside Flower Drum’s street-level entrance, and it’s safe to assume everyone from rock stars to royalty has passed over it on the way up to the dining room. But one of the charms of this nearly 40-year-old institution is that everyone gets red-carpet treatment in the conservative, rose-hued dining room, where these days the mood is delightfully unstuffy.

Manager Jason Lui has the room humming, while his father, chef Anthony Lui, delivers dishes that let luxury produce shine. Expect prestige starters like mud-crab claw in a light ginger sauce, or soup dumplings plump with crab and scallops luxuriating in fragrant broth. Silken egg tofu is combined with scallops and spring onions and steamed. Perfectly seared slices of butter-soft, ruby-rare beef with black pepper sauce are pure pleasure.

If you can resist textbook duck pancakes, served with fanfare from a tableside cart, try garlicky saltbush lamb with leek, stuffed into pockets of wafer-thin dough. In this celebrity-friendly spot, the food is the real star.

And … A whole suckling pig, pre-ordered ($500), or Dom Perignon by the glass ($60) should get the party started.
 
Vibe: Big night out
Best bit: Old-school charm, new-school food
Worst bit: Quality comes at a price
Drinks: A large, prestige list at varied price points with good options by the glass, including menu matches