Restaurateur Kim Minards talks about Enoteca Group’s longevity in the food and drinks business in Hong Kong

Restaurateur Kim Minards came to Hong Kong 20 years ago as a backpacker. “I worked as a waitress, and then went off backpacking again before returning to Hong Kong,” she says. In 2005 - along with her husband, Robert Cooper - Minards founded restaurant group Enoteca Group. “Rob was also a backpacker. We worked for different establishments up until 14 years ago. He was working at The Bayou and I was working in neighbouring Staunton’s in SoHo. We were managers of those two bars and that’s how we met.”

After they were married they decided to open Enoteca. “The Elgin Street restaurant was the first of our restaurants and it’s still there,” she says.

“When we first opened Enoteca in 2005, we were looking for a niche in the marketplace and we decided to open a wine bar,” she explains. “Around that time, you could only get a good selection of wines by the glass in hotels, there were no high street restaurants doing it. It was predominately a wine bar - hence the name - and the food was almost secondary. We had 32 wines by the glass, which on the high street was quite unusual. And the concept really took off.

“Enoteca was so successful that we opened another place called The Pub, just down the road, as an overspill for the wine bar, but it became very successful in it’s own right, and so we opened Cicada next door to that. Those were our first three places,” Minards says. “But [a few years after The Pub and Cicada opened] the building that housed them was pulled down, so we [had to close them] and we reopened Cicada on Elgin Street next door to Enoteca - which is where it is today.”

Enoteca Group now has seven restaurants: Enoteca on Elgin Street and another Enoteca on Tong Chong Street in Quarry Bay; Iberico & Co in SoHo and another in Yoho Mall in Yuen Long; Cicada and the more recently acquired gastropub The Phoenix, both in SoHo, and The Conservatory in Sai Kung.

After more than 12 years in operation, Enoteca and Cicada are still packed every lunch and dinner time. Enoteca serves fresh salads, pastas and pizzas as well as tapas for sharing, and Cicada serves pan Asian dishes and tapas. The dishes are packed with fresh ingredients, with plenty of choices for vegetarians, those wanting light healthy options, and the hungry drinking crowd wanting something more substantial.

The Conservatory has similar dishes to Enoteca on the menu. “With The Conservatory, we’ve gone back to our roots; we watch over the food closely,” says Minards, who more often than not is in the Sai Kung outlet overseeing the busy restaurant. “Everything has to be fresh, everything has to be delivered every day. The emphasis is [on] doing something fresh that we’re proud of.”