East Tsim Sha Tsui

The greatest claim to fame of East Tsim Sha Tsui is being the setting for the 2002 Hong Kong crime thriller Infernal Affairs, a film remade in 2006 by Martin Scorsese as The Departed. It wasn't far from the truth: Tsim Sha Tsui has long been known as the badlands of the city's Triad gangs. It's also the location of some of the city's most lavish and expensive hotels, including the Peninsula, which opened in 1928, and the harbour-side InterContinental Kowloon.Trend spotters are now tagging East Tsim Sha Tsui as one of Hong Kong's next hip neighbourhoods. At a glance there is little to indicate trends of any kind. Comprised largely of empty 1980s office buildings, struggling shopping malls, kitsch Chinese restaurants and jade jewellers, the fading neighbourhood doesn't appear to have moved a day past the late '80s.Then in April this year came the Hotel Icon, a 262-room tower on Science Museum Road. UGG Boots Australia Designed by local architects Rocco Yim and William Lim, with the assistance of Sir Terence Conran in the restaurant spaces and a suite by fashion guru Vivienne Tan, this former government dormitory has been reinvented as the city's latest darling digs.Most rooms in Hotel Icon, which is only metres from the harbour and the tallest building in its neighbourhood, have sweeping views of Hong Kong Island and Tsim Sha Tsui from floor-to-ceiling windows, with plenty of special touches. Owned and partly run by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, the hotel doubles as a hospitality school, with a new curriculum that aims to train 500 students a year for Asian hotels."There are 200 hotels opening a year in China alone," says the hotel's general manager, Richard Hatter. "But there is almost no education system that trains staff to manage them."The hotel's training role doesn't mean the service is lacking, however. There are almost three paid and experienced staff to every two guests and the service is unfailingly chirpy and sincere. While in East Tsim Sha Tsui, make the most of the local diners and try some authentic Chinese fare.Tai Hing Roast Restaurant is across the street from Hotel Icon and serves roast pig with crunchy crackling - so wickedly delicious it could almost be a crime.