As one of the great culinary capitals of the world, Hong Kong can boast not only a superb native cuisine - Cantonese - but also perhaps the widest range of international restaurants of any city outside Europe or North America. This is due in part to the cosmopolitan nature of the population, but perhaps more importantly, to the incredible seriousness attached to dining by the local Chinese.

As well as the joys of dim sum - another Hong Kong speciality - the city offers the full gamut of Chinese restaurants from Beijing to Shanghai to Sichuan (and many smaller localities). It also offers excellent curry houses from the Indian subcontinent, surprisingly reasonable Japanese sushi bars, British pub-style food and endless cheap outlets of the noodle-and-dumpling variety, which are often the best value for money of all. You'll also find the local Chinese fast-food chains, Café de Coral and Maxim's, alongside McDonald's, Pizza Hut and KFC. The choice is endless, and all budgets are catered for. Travellers arriving after a long stint in mainland China are in for the gastronomic blow-out of their lives. The places listed below are a mere fraction of the total, with an emphasis on the less expensive end of the market. Serious gourmets should consult HKTA's Dining, Entertainment & Shopping Directory or the independent free weekly, HK Magazine.

Breakfasts and cafés
All the bigger hotels serve expensive buffet breakfasts. For cheaper, traditional Western breakfasts head for any of the cafés listed (all open throughout the day), although dim sum with tea is a more authentic way to start the morning.

The Big Apple , Harbour Centre (tel 2827 2887). Friendly sandwich bar offering a huge variety of breads and fillings. They also do breakfasts and other hot dishes throughout the day, and will prepare sandwiches in advance if you call ahead, as well as delivering to local addresses.

Dan Ryan's Chicago Bar and Grill , 114 The Mall, Pacific Place, 88 Queensway. American restaurant serving classic breakfasts at weekends (Sat & Sun 7.30-11am) - eggs, pancakes and all the fixings. Great for kids.

DeliFrance . Branches include Worldwide Plaza, Central; 16-18 Queen's Rd, Central; Shui On Centre, Harbour Rd, Wanchai. Pseudo-French café chain with baguette sandwiches, croissants and other pastries along with coffees and juices. Quality and cleanliness can be patchy.

Kiku Express , in the basement of Jardine House, the tower with porthole windows on Connaught Rd, Central. All kinds of breakfasts, from big English fry-ups to bowls of noodles.

Mall Café , The Salisbury YMCA, 41 Salisbury Rd. Large, excellent breakfasts - Western or Chinese - in a relaxing atmosphere.

Movenpick Marché , Levels 6 & 7, The Peak Tower. Good fresh food from this Swiss chain. Salads, sandwiches, soups and daily hot dishes, plus Swiss ice cream. The seventh-floor café has an outside terrace. Open 11am-11pm. Inexpensive. (There is another branch, using the name Delicious at Century Square, D'Aguilar St, Central.)

Oliver's Super Sandwiches . Many branches including: Shop 104, Exchange Square II, 8 Connaught Place, Central; Shop 201-205, Prince's Building, 10 Chater Rd, Central; Repulse Bay Hotel, 109 Repulse Bay Rd, Repulse Bay; Ocean Centre, Tsimshatsui; Tower One, Lippo Centre, Admiralty; Shop A, Fleet House, 38 Gloucester Rd, Wanchai. Popular chain offering excellent sandwiches, salads, baked potatoes, cooked breakfasts and fresh juices.

Pacific Coffee Company , Ground Floor, Bank of America Tower (Mon-Sat 7.30am-6pm); Basement, Pacific Place II, Admiralty (Mon-Sat 7.30am-1pm, Sun 8am-9pm); Star Ferry Piers, Central and Kowloon (Mon-Fri 8am-8pm, Sat & Sun 8am-10pm). Stylish little coffee shop chain with eleven branches. Great coffee, good fruit juices, cookies and sandwiches, plus newspapers, friendly staff, and Internet access (free) in most branches.

Restaurants
Eating is an enormously large part of life in Hong Kong, and restaurant dining in particular is a sociable, family affair. The authentic Chinese restaurants are large, noisy places where dining takes place under bright lights - not as discreet as the candle-lit ambiances so beloved in the West but much more fun. Don't be intimidated by the speed with which you will be rushed to your seat: service is brisk as a rule. Menus in all but the cheapest restaurants should be in English as well as Chinese (although you many not get the full menu translated, and prices have also been known to vary between the two versions). In the very cheap noodle-and-dumpling shops, order by pointing at other people's dishes.

The busiest, brightest restaurants of all are often those serving dim sum for breakfast or lunch - snack-sized portions of savoury dumplings, rolls and buns served in bamboo baskets or on small plates from trolleys which are pushed around the restaurant. In these places you simply request items from passing trolleys, and a card on your table will be marked with the item. Keep picking things up until you are full and the bill will rarely come to $100 per head.

The largest concentration of restaurants in Hong Kong Island is probably in the Wanchai-Happy Valley area, bordering on Causeway Bay . The streets around D'Aguilar Street in Central , just a couple of minutes' walk south from the MTR, are particularly popular with young people and yuppie expatriates. This area is known as Lan Kwai Fong , after the small lane branching off D'Aguilar Street to the east, which is chock-a-block with bars and restaurants. The newest restaurant area is known as SoHo , meaning South of Hollywood Road. In fact, expansion means it now starts at Lyndhurst Terrace, and clusters around the Mid-Levels escalator as far up the slope as Mosque St. Restaurants here come and go very quickly, but in general they tend to be rather less flashy and more civilized than in Lan Kwai Fong, and the clientele is a mix of the more cosmopolitan locals and expats. On the south side of the island, Stanley and Aberdeen are also popular spots for tourists on dining excursions.

In Kowloon, the choice of eateries is hardly less than on the island, though watch out for the possibility of tourist rip-offs in the Chinese restaurants in the Tsimshatsui area, such as heavy charges on unasked-for side-dishes. For Indian food, many of the best-value places are secreted away in the recesses of the Chungking Mansions.

Opening hours are long, to accommodate the long working day, and while many of the traditional Chinese restaurants start to wind down around 9.30pm, you'll have no trouble getting served something late. Don't worry too much about tipping either. Expensive restaurants will add on their own service charge, usually ten percent, while in cheaper places it's customary just to leave the small change. Generally prices are comparable to those in the West: a full dinner without drinks is unlikely to cost less than $100 per head, and that figure can climb to $500 or more in the plushest venues.