In a city dominated by expensive and often forgettable cocktail bars, Blush Central is guaranteed to leave a lasting impression, whether you like it or not.
One of the problems we often find with bars in Hong Kong is that they don’t know who they are. We don’t blame them; Hong Kong is a fickle market with infamous rents, meaning you need to cast the net relatively wide to ensure a full house night after night, and sometimes that means a little conceptual capitulation.
The city’s newest cocktail bar, Blush Central, has no such identity issues – it knows exactly what it wants to be and who it wants to attract, and for that, it gets our respect, even if the drinks are rather ho-hum.
Imagine, if you will, that Barbie and Instagram had a passionate, grenadine-soaked one-night stand that resulted in a cocktail bar love child, and you begin to understand Blush’s design persona. Located on the third floor of the new H Code complex (a building that’s also home to another newbie, Tell Camellia), Blush Central is, as the name might suggest, a cresting tsunami of pink velvet, bronze accents, and fuchsia neon. Close your eyes and you’ll still see its bedazzling interiors, for they are now burnt into your retinas. As if prepared for an epic acid party, the whole space is softs curves and cuddly fabric – even the speakers ooze honey-sweet RnB.
Ironically, this My-Little-Pony-Speakeasy is staffed by lively local lads in leather aprons, who warmly invite us in and ponder seriously when deciding which of the all-but-one empty tables we should occupy.
Entering Blush Central is like being the first customer at a new strip club, before the seats get sticky and the speakers tinny. There is booth seating and velvet stools, odd pink figurines that we can’t decide are ponies or llamas, a pair of neon-streaked Blush-branded beer pong tables, and monochromatic wall murals. A neon sign across one wall says “It’s not love, I’m just drunk,” which is big talk for a place that serves more mocktails than classics.
After taking a booth and following the bar on Instagram (for which you’re cunningly rewarded with truffle fries!) we pick from a handful of curious-sounding cocktails that spike insulin levels with just their descriptions.
The Amour, a blend of “pink vodka”, red dragon fruit, pomegranate, and cranberries, is presented in a very-Instagramable glass lantern on an iron holder. While refreshing, the rose-red drink tastes like diluted off-brand Ribena and is likely to do more damage to your keto diet than your liver.
For something seemingly a little more robust, we opt for the Smokey Eyes, with dark chocolate whisky, orange, chestnut, and oak. Sounds OK on paper right? Served in a smoke-filled vessel, sans garnish, the drink tastes almost exactly like Kahlua on the rocks after you’ve let the ice melt. There’s no intense flavour, no hint of Scotch – but again, that might be what the bar is going for.
Cocktails are a rather hefty HK$128 (HK$68 at happy hour) considering the apparent lack of alcohol. However, if you do visit, and we suggest you do, if only to capture an image you’ll keep for life, you might be better off going with the Big Wave Bay IPA or Dragon’s Back Pale Ale. The venue also serves light lunches and bar snacks in the evening.
Whether it’s pure curiosity or a subtle date night tactic that draws you here, you can join the ranks of moody, smartphone-addicted IGing chicks that you just KNOW are going to make Blush Central their new clubhouse, with a vape sheesha session, priced from HK$380, for which the boys swear they have a license.
Time to tackle the pink.
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