Dickens Bar

A nice sportbar in the basement of Hotel Excelsior with a big variety of both draught and bottled beers. They have both traditional English and International cuisines and the ones I’ve tried so far been really nice. They are in the upper end in pricing but thats like the story of all places on HK Island. Try it!

One of our favourite places to visit on our Hong Kong trips. Food is excellent and staff is friendly.

Dickens is really more of a sports bar than a pub. The food comes in generous portions, and the chips/​fries are excellent. They also have a very nice bottled beer list, and some good tap selections. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a «proper pub,» in the British sense.

Good food and good sports bar.
This place is right beneath the Excelsior hotel and its one of those places I describe to be a hidden gem. From the moment you step in you will note all the photos of top sports persons lining the wall and various rugby shirts are hung on the walls of the restaurant. Furthermore you will find a huge dragonboat cup that’s placed by one of the exits– you can be in no doubt that this is a sports related place.
There are TVs dangling down from the ceiling and along the walls– this is a place to watch games and have a drink; there is a full size bar in the middle and you can just about get everything you could think of on tap.
Or you can do what I did– I came here on a weekend and had the difficult choice of whether going for the brunch buffet or a la carte. For reasons that I shall spare you with we went a la carte and ordered a bit of everything– ribs, burgers, salads and I can sum it up in saying that I liked everything that was being served there. That’s probably because all of it are very «Amercian” — big portions, a lot of cheese and sauce– but not in a bad way. It is just nice.
Ladies may also note that they do a bubbly deal too– but you will need to check whether that’s still on offer.

Located on the basement of Excelsior Hotel, Dickens is an English sports bar with a wide variety of both food and drinks on offer. We came during their happy hour time, which is 4−8pm, and each ordered a drink. I was pretty surprised that there was such a wide selection of cocktails, given that it is a sports bar and most sports bar mainly serve beer and have a small (or in some, no) selection of cocktails. There were two pages of cocktails — their specialty ones and traditional cocktails. After some pondering, we got a Cosmopolitan and a Gothic Romance (gin, peach liquer and cranberry juice).
I was a little surprised that we were given complementary popcorn and peanuts. I mean, peanuts are the standard fare, but popcorn too?! I love popcorn, so this was definitely a pleasant surprise. Unfortunately the popcorn wasn’t great as there were still kernels in some that hadn’t been popped, and there were obvious burnt bits on most of the corn. But hey, at least it’s salty, not sweet (ugh!) popcorn!
Our drinks arrived really fast — within 10 minutes of ordering. Oh, and speaking of their drinks, I thought the names of their own cocktails were really creative, like Our Mutual Friend and Oliver Twist, in keeping with the English theme. I’m no mixologist, but my Gothic Romance was very nice and refreshing. There was a nice balance between the peach and the cranberry, neither being more overpowering. The Cosmopolitan tasted a little stronger and it came with a huge orange slice on the rim of the glass.
Dickens has quite a few bar snacks, but we were too full from our big lunch to eat anymore. I have heard good things about the food here though and they have themed nights like Curry Mondays. As this is a hotel bar, be prepared to expect slightly higher prices!

Dickens Bar is a British gastro pub in the basement of the Excelsior Hotel in CWB.
It is a little bit of a gloomy place, maybe compounded by the fact that there always seems to be lot of single business travellers in there, dining and drinking alone, or perhaps because the staff shuffle around in bow-​ties and waistcoats like real old school HK. They are also a bit clueless about their own menu.
However, it’s actually got a good menu of British fare, and a really extensive selection of beers and ciders. Mrs L was delighted to find a Welsh cider on the menu, but was appalled to see they had incorrectly labelled it as English — grrrr! There is also a daily special, such as curry night, and roast dinner night.
The décor is accurately British pub, which makes it easy to forget you are in the basement of a Hong Kong hotel. There are lots of screens showing sports, so definitely a good place to catch live sports and a beer. It is also quite roomy to get a big group in there.
The food and drinks are reasonably priced, and there is a happy hour.