Bar Leone's team opens Bar Camillo at Rosewood Hong Kong

Bar Camillo opens at Rosewood Hong Kong on 25 November, bringing the team behind World's No. 1 bar Bar Leone into a 50-seat space built around an Italian living room.

The bar sits inside Rosewood Hong Kong, at 18 Salisbury Road in Tsim Sha Tsui, overlooking Victoria Harbour. It is designed and run by Lorenzo Antinori and Justin Shun Wah, the pair who opened Bar Leone in Central in 2023 and have since taken it to the top of the World's 50 Best Bars list two years running.

Bar Camillo's Italian living room

Fifty seats, four menus a year, and a trolley that turns negroni-making into tableside theatre.

The concept borrows from the salotto, the Italian living room that doubles as a household's social hub. Interiors mix glossy wood veneers, polished metal and mirrored walls in alpine green, gold and cream, with a long banquette beside the bar, quieter corners further back, and a terrace open to the harbour.

The 50 seats split between indoor and outdoor areas, well short of the queues Bar Leone draws nightly in Central. The cocktail list changes four times a year, each menu built around a moment in Italian pop culture, from its music to its drinking habits, mixing aperitivi and reworked classics with new house creations.

A trolley carries the signature ritual. Guests pick a base spirit, a garnish and a flavour profile – floral, savoury or rich – and a Negroni is built at the table rather than behind the bar. A second house tradition, the Negroni Sospeso, sets aside a round for the next guest who wants one, a nod to Naples' suspended-coffee custom.

"At Bar Camillo, we want to strip away the formality found in a traditional hotel bar," Antinori said of the project. The bar reports to Rosewood's own food and beverage team rather than running as an outside concession, a structure the hotel has also used for its wine programme.

Bar Leone's two-year run on top

Bar Leone, the pair's original project on Bridges Street, has held the No. 1 spot on the World's 50 Best Bars list for two consecutive years and tops the separate Asia ranking as well. Rosewood Hong Kong carries its own title, first place on the World's 50 Best Hotels list, which Antinori has pointed to directly: Bar Camillo, he said, is meant to bring "the energy and vibes of a standalone bar" into a five-star address.

Reservations open on 25 November, the same day the bar does, and run two months out at a time – a booking window about as tight as the room itself.