The taste of influence: 3 Hong Kong creators cooking up culture, identity and ambition

First came the camera, then the craving. In Hong Kong, where content is currency and stories are shot in HD, three women turned their appetites into entrepreneurial pursuits—each using food to connect with identity, community and the modern hunger for meaning.

From a pageant queen with a sweet tooth to a vlogger turned banh-mi-advocate to a beauty influencer finding her way back home through pandan and steam, these creators, known for their lifestyle content, have turned their gaze to food as a new frontier.

See also: 29 Hong Kong foodies to follow on Instagram

From Crown to Cocoa

Grace Chan is turning indulgence into inspiration with Dulce Vida

Dulce Vida’s Dubai pistachio dark chocolate bar

Grace Chan (@ghlchan) of Dulce Vida

Walk into Grace Chan’s life at any given moment and it’s probably a carousel of contrasts. At home: three small boys, an actor husband, toy dinosaurs scattered on the floor. Online: sleek visuals, soft-filtered smiles and a fanbase still nostalgic for her reign as Miss Hong Kong and Miss Chinese International, followed by a TVB career that cemented her as the city’s sweetheart. And somewhere in between: chocolate.

Not just any chocolate; Dulce Vida, a brand she co-founded with dessert artisan Samantha Chow (@missmarble.hk), also known as Fafa, is a sweet love letter to pleasure without penalty. “Fafa and I met online—kind of how everyone meets these days,” says Chan. “And as mothers, we both realised how much we wanted to create a business for ourselves that would one day inspire our kids to work hard and dream big.”

That business evolved into a line of creative chocolate bars—think Japanese pistachio cream, Meiji strawberry with pop rock candy, and salted caramel with pretzel, as well as chocolate bites, beans and crumble for tea breaks, and boxed gifting editions. “We also love the idea of reinventing chocolate to new heights because so many people love chocolate, but always see it as a guilty pleasure,” she says. “We created and adapted so many recipes, went through so many trials and errors, until we finally perfected, [for example,] what we call ‘the best Dubai chocolate in Hong Kong’.”

The chocolate contains 30 per cent less sugar than your standard supermarket bar, but this isn’t “clean eating” posturing. It’s chocolate made by women who want joy and nourishment to coexist. “The name, which means ‘sweet life’, plays on the well-known Italian term dolce vita; [we want] to tease the desire for a bit of indulgence after a long day while not needing to compromise on health,” Chan explains. “We use less sugar and use wholesome dark chocolate flavours, all while playing with new flavours and recipes.”

Dulca Vida is already a hit, but Chan’s goals are bigger than bars. “Our dream? To collaborate with more and more brands and also move towards creating food markets and fairs to encourage and awaken the Hong Kong food scene once again,” she says. “The best kind of environment isn’t for one person to win it all, but for a shared space of continual growth and success.”

Bread, Butter and Belonging

From YouTube to bánh mì: Phung’s sandwich shop is a love letter to Saigon soul food

Bánh Mì Nếm is where southern Vietnamese flavours take centre stage

Kiki Phung (@kikiphung) of Bánh Mì Nếm

It’s the lunch rush in Wan Chai and Central. Office workers are queuing and hoping they’ll get one of the day’s sandwiches before it sells out. The bread crackles. The pork is warm, rich and gently spiced. And behind the counter, often smiling and sleeves rolled up, is Kiki Phung, who, just a few years ago, was not a co-founder of a sandwich shop, but a content creator on YouTube with a quiet mission.

Kiki arrived in her early twenties from Ho Chi Minh City. She worked as a fitness consultant, later working as a court interpreter, demonstrating fluency in Vietnamese, Cantonese and English. But when the pandemic hit, she pivoted sharply, launching a bilingual YouTube channel to decode Hong Kong life for Vietnamese viewers and showcase Vietnam’s food culture to locals. Through those videos of trying many Vietnamese restaurants in the city, she realised “nothing tastes like home.” Frustrated by the lack of authentic southern Vietnamese fare in Hong Kong, Kiki decided to do something about it.

In early 2024, she opened Bánh Mì Nếm in Wan Chai. Less than a year later, a second location followed in Central. The shops are compact, but the food is layered: fillings including cold cuts, stewed pork and lemongrass chicken, served on locally baked baguettes made to Vietnamese specs. The eatery also offers vermicelli bowls and snacks such as fried spring rolls and lemongrass chicken wings, along with Vietnamese milk coffee.

“As a Vietnamese person living in Hong Kong,” Phung says, “I want to use my limited power to introduce Vietnamese food culture to the city. Banh mi is full of history, and food can always bring people together, so I want to start with banh mi and let Hongkongers know more about Vietnamese culture.”

Vietnamese food in Hong Kong has long leaned north, favouring the cleaner, lighter flavours of Hanoi. Phung wanted to make a case for her own city’s palate—southern, bold, vibrant and a little sweeter. She’s not a trained chef, nor does she pretend to be, but she knows her audience, and now, she’s telling her story with tasty sandwiches.

Layers of Home

Beauty creator-turned-founder Kelly Chan channels personal history into Rumah

For Kelly Chan, kueh lapis is both a nod to her Indonesian roots and a layered expression of identity

Kelly Chan (@khengchan_) of Rumah

There are two versions of Kelly Chan. The first is better known as Spoon, a polished lifestyle and beauty content creator with a curated feed of skincare routines, travel moments and wardrobe reveals. But the other version started to emerge quietly, in moments of reflection following the loss of her grandmother in 2022—an event that nudged Chan back toward the flavours of her childhood. Not long after, she teamed up with a friend, food consultant Mel Ng, to co-found Rumah, a food brand that would turn memory into method, and mourning into something meaningful.

She says, “I decided to start Rumah to honour my family and reconnect with my Indonesian roots. [I was] driven by the noticeable lack of Indonesian cultural representation in Hong Kong, and believing my influencer platform makes me the perfect ambassador to share our culture through the unifying power of food.”

What makes Rumah special is its commitment to presenting a modern and unprejudiced version of Indonesian culture to a younger audience, embracing diversity and fostering understanding across communities. Its debut product, the pandan kue lapis, exemplifies this modern approach, reimagining a traditional treat with a lighter, less sweet profile to cater to contemporary tastes while preserving its heritage.

The 18-layer steamed cake was developed from Chan’s mother’s recipe and refined through months of testing. Each layer is steamed by hand in precise 70g increments, forming a silky ombré from rice white to jade green. It is, as Chan has said, a dessert that invites you to peel back each layer—not just of the cake, but of identity.

Since launching, Rumah has introduced seasonal flavours including Japanese black sesame, a rainbow edition for Pride, and a version inspired by klepon, small, chewy rice balls filled with molten palm sugar and coated in freshly grated coconut, in collaboration with oat milk brand Oatside. Limited-edition drops consistently sell out within minutes. Still, the brand resists expansion for expansion’s sake. It remains thoughtful, small and exacting.

For Chan, who moved from Jakarta to Hong Kong at the age of three and grew up explaining her lunchbox and dodging questions about why her food smelled “different”, Rumah is not just a brand or a business; it’s a way to reclaim the narrative, one cake layered with memory and resolve at a time.

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