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The first time I went to Macau was in 2017, and I spent an embarrassing amount of time lost inside The Venetian. Let me tell you, there\u2019s something profoundly disorienting about a fake sky and canals indoors. I kept passing the same gondola, panic mounting. I suspect I\u2019m not alone in this experience \u2013 or in the broader reality that many people never see much beyond Macau\u2019s glitz and glam. It\u2019s easy to visit for a weekend, stick to the resorts and come away thinking you\u2019ve seen the city. But for our Macau issue, we wanted to go deeper into both the past and present.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere in the world of food and drink, Elaine Wong looks at where Macau\u2019s chefs eat when they\u2019re off the clock. The answer: roadside stalls turned roofed eateries, izakayas in Taipa and alleyways near Lin Kai Temple, where the same hawkers who once cooked kerbside now run modest restaurants serving beef offal and imitation shark fin soup until dawn.<\/p>\n
Paul French tells the story of the Hotel Central and its restoration, a years-long project born from developer Simon Sio Chong-meng\u2019s childhood grudge. After being thrown out by the doormen as a boy, he pointed at the building and said, \u201cOne day, when I\u2019m rich, I\u2019m going to buy you.\u201d<\/p>\n
And he did. Built in 1928 as the tallest building in all of Portugal\u2019s colonies, the Central was where Ian Fleming sipped G&Ts and gamblers sent bets down to the casino floor in reed baskets. Sio\u2019s restoration brings it back to that era, complete with changpao-clad concierges and art deco chandeliers, in a city that\u2019s otherwise defined by its embrace of the new and glitzy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n