Hong Kong’s most eccentric gin bar is back with The Doctor’s Residence by Dr. Fern — a trippy speakeasy where cocktails come with diagnoses and gin is still the house religion.
The doctor is in.
After a brief sabbatical, Hong Kong’s most eccentric mixologist returns — and this time, he’s inviting you to his new home.
The Doctor’s Residence by Dr. Fern — what used to be Hong Kong’s cult-favourite gin bar, Dr. Fern’s Gin Parlour — recently opened at The Pottinger Hotel. But this isn’t merely a sequel; its new iteration is an expansion of the doctor’s surrealist universe, reframed as a 1970s townhouse-cum-clinic where cocktails are medicine, gin is gospel, and psychotropic humour seeps from every corner.
Just the kind of treatment we’re seeking.
From its plush, emerald-swathed salon to the fern-strewn alfresco terrace, The Doctor’s Residence by Dr. Fern entices you to step into a hallucinogenic reverie filtered through British eccentricity and botanical obsession. Retro, intimate, and defiantly out of time — it’s the sort of bar where lava lamps glow softly next to bespoke gin tonics and the occasional martini might arrive garnished with… jellyfish.
Weird. But also strangely intoxicating.
Its mixology mission remains steadfast: healing through botanicals, albeit with a strong surrealist streak. Spearheaded by Bar Manager Babit Burathoki, the new drinks menu reads like a pharmaceutical cornucopia, with each “prescription” served with a diagnosis, dosage, and tasting notes that promises wildly imaginative side effects.
There’s Brinewashed, a spicy, herbaceous number made with gin, coriander, house chilli brine and clarified watermelon juice, or the Shroom Service, a mushroom foam-topped tonic of gin and Fernet Hunter, prescribed for spiritual recalibration.
Meanwhile, Sultan Serum upends the classic Manhattan with gin, pineapple-infused rum, and Iron Buddha tea, with side effects cheekily listed as “main character energy” and “fluency in pyramid schemes”. Otherwise there’s the polarising Jellyfish Martini, a dirty textural plunge into the deep with squid-distilled gin, jellyfish, sake, saline and cucumber bitters.
And not to forget — Dr. Fern’s Gin Parlour was a gin temple first and foremost. The Doctor’s Residence by Dr. Fern continues that legacy with over 400 gins on the shelves, one of the most extensive gin collections in Hong Kong. So feel free to have your way with their gins, particularly with the gin and tonic programme that lets you pick and choose your poison.
What truly defines The Doctor’s Residence by Dr. Fern is its sense of narrative and theatre. This is a bar that invites you to step into a story, sip through a set of symptoms, and leave a little more amused — and more than a little confused — than when you entered.
You may want to double check your prescription.
The Doctor’s Residence by Dr. Fern
Address 3/F, The Pottinger Hotel 74 Queens Road Central, 21 Stanley St, Central, Hong Kong (Google Maps link)
Opening Hours 5pm to 1am Mondays to Thursdays; 5pm to 3am Fridays and Saturdays; 5pm to 12am on Sundays
Tel (852) 6999 9831
Instagram @drfernshk
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