What is Ronin? “There’s a lot of things Ronin isn’t,” laughs Matt Abergel, the chef and co-owner of Yardbird’s new sister restaurant. For one, it’s no carbon copy of its wildly successful sibling on Bridges Street. It doesn’t serve chicken, and neither is it a sushi bar, although it specialises in seafood. And, it’s not even just a bar, as it was rumoured to be last summer when Abergel and co-owner Lindsay Jang started making plans for their second project. “We’re restaurant people,” shrugs Abergel. “And this is what we know how to do best.”

Situated a short walk away from Yardbird, Ronin (which is actually named after Abergel and Jang’s young son) is a diminutive, rectangular venue on the On Wo Lane cul-de-sac. A slate-grey and wood doorway gives away no sign to the slick eatery hidden behind, which seats about 12 along a streamlined Japanese wood counter and about the same amount of space for punters along the wall, the latter standing-room only.

The whole concept of Ronin is, interestingly, that it evolved from almost no concept at all. “It’s funny because Yardbird had this huge story, and there was this romanticism that surrounded it,” admits Jang. “And Ronin was very much all about having the right landlord and the right space.

“Matt and I have been constantly looking for real estate since Yardbird was successful enough to run without us,” she continues, though the pressure to pull off a good second restaurant was always there. “People want you to be a one-hit wonder,” she says. “People want you to be a one-trick pony.” The only thing the duo were sure of that their new project wasn’t going to have anything to do with chicken. Abergel wanted to return to working with seafood – something that has always defined his cooking, particularly during his time working in New York City. “Don’t get me wrong, I love chicken,” he laughs. “But being here, in Hong Kong and so close to Japan, there’s so much variety and so much I can have access to.”

Abergel’s inspiration comes partly from an innate love for Japan and its food culture, and the local bounty he has come to know and appreciate here in Hong Kong. Traipsing the wet markets of Aberdeen and nearby Graham Street and Gage Street, he has his mind set on pushing more local delicacies that have been overlooked in favour of international produce. Already on the menu at Ronin are local squid, geoduck and sayori (needle fish), their natural seafood sweetness coaxed out with punchy flavours by way of ingredients such as sudachi lime, yuzu kosho and a sweet-sour kimchi gastrique.

“I think there’s this really weird food culture here, as far as foreign chefs go,” says Abergel. “Everywhere else in the world there’s this real push for local, and there’s pride if what they’re serving is very close to where the restaurant is. And here it’s like the further away you order from the better. No one is really fully exploring what I think to be the truest natural bounty of Hong Kong, which is the ocean.”

In the video above, Abergel and Jang explain what Ronin is, and isn’t, and talk candidly about why they love what they do.