“Sorry. it’s only tea,” said photographer Bex Gaunt as she readied Alan Lo with a whisky tumbler at the bar of The Pawn during our cover shoot. Alan’s shoulders slumped in mock disappointment but he soldiered on, posing with a smoking leek for one of the day’s more Wong Kar-wai-esque shots. 

When Alan and his wife, Yenn Wong, two of Hong Kong’s most prolific restaurateurs, agreed to be our cover stars, we immediately set to work dreaming up a concept for the photo shoot that would be unlike anything else we’d done. We met the dynamic duo at Duddell’s to bounce around ideas. Among the words conjured in conversation that day were edgy, whimsical and graphic, which is exactly how our shoot at The Pawn turned out—a mix of high fashion and fun foods, all shot by Nic and Bex Gaunt. 

Throughout the day, Alan and Yenn worked their best angles as noodles from one of Alan’s local haunts in Wan Chai, seafood and vegetables were woven into the shots. Proceedings adjourned for a lunch of juicy beef burgers and pints of locally brewed beer courtesy of The Pawn, before work resumed and continued into the evening. 

“We didn’t even do proper wedding photos when we got married,” confided Yenn as she took a break from throwing grapes at her husband (for another photo, not just for the hell of it). “So doing a shoot together is quite fun.” 

Turn to page 230 in the November issue of Hong Kong Tatler for the full story