{"id":17068,"date":"2025-12-05T14:40:41","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T06:40:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=17068"},"modified":"2025-12-05T14:40:41","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T06:40:41","slug":"why-founders-of-hong-kong-restaurant-francis-looked-to-south-europe-for-new-spot-carmela","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=17068","title":{"rendered":"Why founders of Hong Kong restaurant Francis looked to South Europe for new spot Carmela"},"content":{"rendered":"


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When James Ward launched Francis, on St Francis Yard in Wan Chai, he and his partners simply adopted part of the street name on which the restaurant was located. Their second restaurant, in Central, was called Francis West.<\/p>\n

With their new restaurant Carmela, in Sheung Wan, they had to do a little more work in creative branding and strategy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted a one-word name that would align nicely with Francis,\u201d Ward says of the new southern Mediterranean eatery. \u201cIt is an old Italian and Spanish name. It is also a nice connection with Asher.\u201d<\/p>\n

That would be chef Asher Goldstein, a Tel Aviv native and Ward\u2019s partner who, along with sommelier Simone Sammuri<\/span>, forms the trio behind Carmela.<\/div>\n

\u201cIn Hebrew, carmela<\/em> also means garden,\u201d Ward says. \u201cAnd on Israel\u2019s coastline, on the Mediterranean Sea, you have Mount Carmel, so it\u2019s a nod to that. I think it sounds quite charming and warm.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The dishes at Carmela are mostly from Southern Europe and the Southern Mediterranean. Photo: Carmela<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Ward needed to give his new venture some thought because the area where Carmela is located is quite different from that of his previous restaurants.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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When James Ward launched Francis, on St Francis Yard in Wan Chai, he and his partners simply adopted part of the street name on which…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17069,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[11783,496,8413,11782,3569,5231,8733,476,5246,1252],"class_list":["post-17068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bored-interesting","tag-carmela","tag-europe","tag-founders","tag-francis","tag-hong","tag-kong","tag-looked","tag-restaurant","tag-south","tag-spot","wpcat-33-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17068\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}