Artichoke Canteen

LOVELY! What a gem in the empty, cavernous Harbour Industrial Center (two blocks over from the outlet shopping building Horizon Plaza).
Having been out to Horizon Plaza to go shopping on occassion, I was aware that there are virtually no places to eat, sit, relax. On Unilocal,I discovered Artichoke Canteen, bookmarked it and then had a plan for our shopping outing in Ap Lei Chau.
In order to find, locate the entrance on Lee Lok Street. It appears to be residential or empty and it does feel a bit strange. The door man confirmed we were in the right spot and we took the elevators up to the 3^rd floor. Hit the restroom you see when you get off the elevator if you need it, for although not a great restroom, it is the only one available to you. You continue to walk down the large, cement open hallways and think you are certainly in the wrong place, when at the end of the hallway you discover Artichoke Canteen.
Open for about 3 years now and catering to many weddings, corporate events, fashion shows, birthday party dinners, large groups, art shows, etc, they do serve lunch and dinner. When we walked in, we felt like we had walked into someone’s personal home and kitchen space in their funky urban warehouse loft. Very open, lots of light, extremely kind staff… it is a great, casual space. They have a great big outdoor patio as well. Big wooden farm tables, mis matched chairs and table vases, open window to see what is going on in the kitchen.
The menu has a heavy vegetarian feel and Italian influences, but includes wood oven pizzas, pasta, salads, seafood and chicken. Everything is homemade, fresh, quality ingredients, made with care for serving healthy stuff. They have pea soup which is a specialty! We enjoyed their soup of the day, which was a fresh mushroom and potatoe. So delicious, absolutely fresh and tasted like the earth of where the mushrooms grew! We also shared the paella, made with saffrom that comes straight from Turkey. It was superb! Washed down with a freshly pressed 5 vegetable juice, we had a lovely little lunch at the Artichoke Café.
The staff and owners could not have been more friendly, welcoming and gracious. We felt so welcome and comfortable in this little gem of a spot for our quiet little lunch. We will absolutley return every time we are over here shopping at Horizon Plaza.

A friend of mine recently celebrated her 27^th birthday at Artichoke Canteen in AirSpace. Aberdeen/​Ap Lei Chau is seriously out of the way for me and for most other Hong Kongers who are intimately attached to the colour coded lines and stops on the MTR map. After a 20-​minute cab ride from Causeway Bay, we arrived in front of the huge Harbour Industrial Centre with big yellow elevators and long grey cement hallways. I thought we had missed a turn or something, because I couldn’t imagine a restaurant would be inside a building as industrial as this. But apparently Hong Kong still surprises me. Indeed, the warehouse grunge chic was rather alien to me, but it gave The Artichoke Canteen a lot of character, especially when you’re in the open terrace, an island offering healthy canapés and yellow balloons and blasting House music, surrounded by columns and columns more of industrial gray buildings and frosted factory-​style windows.
Inside Airspace we could browse through the art gallery, but the space also lends itself for yoga workshops and business events. For this particular birthday, we all forked $ 450 for the outdoor terrace from 4 to 10pm. The night included: free flow whiskey and vodka mixers; and healthy vegetarian canapés like scrambled eggs on cucumber, stuffed mushrooms, salmon crostini, and thin crispy pizzas with tomatoes and rocket. It was a little too hot to have an outdoor event in the middle of the day, but by night fall, everyone was very comfortable.
Tiniest issue was that there are no toilets inside the canteen — rather, you have to walk to where the elevators are outside and direct yourself to the toilet connected with the whole building. No biggie, just bring a friend for the stroll.