Coming Soon: Chris Lucas Reveals Wishbone, a Hong Kong-Inspired Restaurant

Thai, Malaysian, Korean, Japanese, French, Italian – in the 30 years Chris Lucas has been in hospitality, he’s opened restaurants devoted to all sorts of cuisines, but strangely, never Chinese. That ends in October, when he and wife Sarah Lucas open Wishbone, inspired by Hong Kong’s small restaurants and street food stalls.

“In its heyday, I reckon Hong Kong was the most exciting city in the world. I used to love going there. I went almost every second week for work,” Lucas says, referring to his time working as an IBM executive in Tokyo in the early ’90s.

Chef Dan Chan, who grew up in Hong Kong, has run the kitchen at Lucas’s Japanese restaurant Tombo Den since it opened in September 2024. Before that he worked at yakitori spot Yardbird, one of Hong Kong’s most renowned restaurants. The two men have had several chats about their shared love for the city and its food. “I said, ‘Look, why don’t we do something around street food?’” Lucas says.

Dumplings will play an outsized role on the menu, coming steamed or fried, filled with both traditional Chinese fillings and some local spins. Other dishes planned are prawn toast, hand-cut noodles and char siu pork blasted in one of two woodfire ovens. Weekend yum cha will be served from trays rather than trolleys.

“The menu is very close to my heart and draws on my time in Hong Kong, as well as broader travel,” Chan says. “The food scene in Hong Kong has always been a brilliant, chaotic mix of influences – a bit eccentric, and a lot of fun. That’s what I want people to feel when they eat at Wishbone.”

Apart from the woodfire ovens, the kitchen will be all electric and include two induction woks, tying into the green credentials of the 48-storey, $1.1 billion tower at 435 Bourke Street that will have Wishbone at its base. Diners will enter via poky McKillop Street, glimpsing striking red perspex stairs before entering the dining room Chris and Sarah Lucas designed with DKO Architecture. The palette will revolve around three Rs: red, rich and retro, with soft furnishings inspired by the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s.

“I’m excited we’re doing a type of cuisine that we don’t see a lot of in Melbourne,” Lucas says. “You see more traditional sorts of Chinese food – you know, Cantonese and Sichuan – whereas I think doing a cool version of Chinese street food’s going to be fun and a bit new.”

Lucas will open a second restaurant in the same precinct before the year is out – this time serving Greek, another cuisine he’s yet to tackle, despite having a Greek-born father.

Wishbone will open in October 2026 at 435 Bourke Street, Melbourne, with entry via McKillop Street. Bookings will be available closer to opening.