Tim Ho Wan is the dim sum chain that made global headlines in 2010 as the cheapest Michelin-starred restaurant in the world. It was founded by former Four Seasons dim sum chef Mak Kwai Pui and fellow chef Leung Fai Keung, who left prestigious hotel kitchens in 2009 to open a tiny 20-seat shop in Mong Kok with a simple goal: make genuinely high-quality dim sum affordable to everyone. This Sham Shui Po location, at G/F & M/F, Ka Wui Building, 9-11 Fuk Wing Street, is the chain’s second Hong Kong branch and the one Michelin inspectors highlight today, since the original Mong Kok shop has since closed.
The Sham Shui Po branch is noticeably roomier than the original hole-in-the-wall, with two private first-floor rooms, yet it still draws a steady queue of regulars and visitors. The menu rotates more than 20 dim sum items every two to three months to keep things fresh, but a handful of signatures never leave the table: the baked buns with barbecue pork filling (a Tim Ho Wan trademark that reinvents char siu bao as a sweet, flaky bun), the steamed shrimp dumplings, and the steamed beef balls, all turned out with the same precision that earned the brand its star despite rock-bottom prices.
Sham Shui Po itself is one of Kowloon’s older, more local neighbourhoods — known for fabric markets, electronics stalls and cheap eats — so Tim Ho Wan here sits among genuinely local street-level dining rather than a tourist strip. From its humble 2009 beginnings, the brand has since expanded into a global mini-empire with outlets as far afield as Sydney and Singapore, but this Sham Shui Po dining room remains the closest living link to where the Michelin-star story actually started.
