Perched high above Hong Kong’s financial district, Peridot is the kind of bar that leans into theatre without turning into a theme. It sits on the 38th floor of The Henderson, the new sculptural tower by Zaha Hadid Architects, and it takes the “sky bar” idea somewhere more cinematic, more enveloping, more emotionally tuned.
The interiors are by Studio Paolo Ferrari, led by founder and principal Paolo Ferrari, a designer who talks about bars the way directors talk about scenes. His reference points are telling, places where you do not only drink, you watch, you listen, you absorb the choreography of bartenders, glassware, light, and sound.
Peridot’s design starts with a simple constraint and turns it into a signature. The space is compact for its altitude, around 1,600 square feet, with a relatively modest ceiling height, so Ferrari’s team treated it like a capsule. They divided it into two rooms with the bar acting as a hinge, a main seating area and a more hidden lounge behind, connected by gleaming portals that read like frames between scenes.
The most striking move is the continuous shell that wraps wall into ceiling. It is built from a prefabricated, bendable plywood structure, CNC-cut, then coated in coloured plaster so the surface feels more monolithic than “constructed.” The effect is cocooning, almost like stepping inside a carved object rather than a fit-out.
Then there’s the colour. Studio Paolo Ferrari landed on a green-yellow plaster tone they call olivine, with a warm golden cast in daylight that shifts into something more surreal once the city turns on at night. That single hue is carried everywhere, across window treatments, carpet, and even the men’s restroom, which is clad in green Korean marble. The bar’s name, Peridot, comes from the green gemstone, and the palette makes that reference feel physical rather than literal.
What makes the room feel alive is the detail work within the smoothness. Points of light stud the interior, and polished steel elements catch and return the glow, so the space never sits still. Even when it reads as one continuous colour, it has depth, movement, and a kind of soft intensity. You can see why Ferrari pushed against the default “heritage bar” language. Instead of borrowing nostalgia from the 1950s, Peridot feels like an imagined future that still understands comfort.
There’s also a smart alignment between building and interior. The Henderson’s exterior curves are echoed inside, so the bar feels like an extension of the tower rather than a tenant within it. That matters at this altitude, because the view is already doing a lot of work. Peridot meets the skyline with an interior that can hold its own, which is rare.
And it is not only a design story. Peridot positions itself as an all-day to late-night destination with live music, a cocktails program built around “terroir,” and a plant-based menu that leans into technique and fermentation. The hospitality layer matches the room’s mood, lush, precise, slightly otherworldly, but still welcoming.
If you’re in Hong Kong and tired of bars that look great in photos but feel flat in person, Peridot is worth the lift ride. It’s immersive without being claustrophobic, luxe without being stiff, and genuinely transportive, which is the hardest brief of all.
Address: Summit 38, 38/F, The Henderson, 2 Murray Road, Central, Hong Kong.