This former British colony's style-conscious residents certainly know how to let their hair down. Here are some of the best insider options for a night out on the town in bustling Honkers.

Look the part

Before heading out, nip into the Jasmine Room, just steps from Lan Kwai Fong in Central on Hong Kong Island, a strip of bars popular with young expats. Here, the staff will polish your nails to sparkle like the night sky or pamper you with a facial or hot-stone massage.

If you've already indulged in a hard day's shopping, a foot massage will help keep you upright during the hours ahead. For the men, a visit to the delightfully anachronistic barbershop in the Mandarin Oriental hotel on Hong Kong Island is an excellent way to kick off an evening.

Get your glad rags on

Haven't sorted your outfit? In Hong Kong you can almost shop around the clock and some of the island's most chic addresses stay open until 10pm.

Head to SoHo, the narrow hillside streets that snake upwards to the south of Hollywood Road in Central, where up-and-coming designers offer something distinctly edgier than the global brands crammed into Hong Kong's malls. Squeeze into Buttonhole on Peel Street for vintage-inspired style; around the corner in Staunton Street is Present, for extremely glam underwear.

Hong Kong's trendsetting men and women also venture into Spy Henry Lau; Henry is a local boy known for his outrageous style. Buttonhole, 60B Peel St, +852 2899 2069; Present, 41 Staunton St, +852 2522 9221; Spy Henry Lau, 21 Staunton St, +852 2317 6928.

Music to your ears

If you're dressed to impress, the discerning concierge at the five-star Landmark Mandarin Oriental in Central may just drop the velvet rope for Unplugged at MO Bar, a series of private concerts in the intimate lounge where Delta Goodrem, Alicia Keys and Wyclef Jean have already graced the makeshift stage to play for local VIPs and select hotel guests.

The Zuma experience

Next door is Zuma, a glamorous scene offering a Japanese gastronomic experience that attracts all the local celebrities.

Executive chef Dan Segall hails from Boston but proves his Asian culinary expertise with dishes such as grilled Japanese eggplant lacquered with kyushu and white miso chilli sauce, grilled Hokkaido scallops with grated apples and wasabi, plus a signature succulent black cod with wasabi lime sauce wrapped in hoba leaf. The most stylish diners opt for chopsticks upstairs in the sexy low-lit lounge decorated with rare sake and fine wine bottles.

The art scene

Hong Kong locals appreciate art at least as much for its aesthetic merit as its financial value. Ooi Botos Gallery mounts exhibitions that explore China's rapid 21st-century growth through avant-garde photography, video and installation art. This venue sitting behind a red rippled fibreglass facade is unexpectedly sandwiched between the fruit vendors and street stalls of Wan Chai Market on Hong Kong Island, one of the last slivers of old Hong Kong.

Foodie hot spots

While the lanes immediately around Ooi Botos Gallery remain decidedly old school, with men in singlets selling sometimes unidentifiable edibles under signs scribbled in Chinese script, two new eateries nearby herald the success of a controversial heritage preservation effort (the J Senses development) by the Urban Renewal Authority. The top three floors of the Woo Cheong Pawn Shop, a four-storey complex of four adjacent shophouses from 1888, have become The Pawn, a colonial-chic gastro-pub and lounge.

The owners salvaged building materials from a Shenzhen shipyard and added replica Chinese grill gates between the dining rooms, while spacious verandas and a roof garden offer a panorama of surrounding skyscrapers. The Anglo comfort food menu includes roast bone marrow with horseradish cream, and fish and chips with mushy peas.

Around the corner on Ship Street, a former family home dating to the late 1930s, which retains its facade's intricate mouldings and early 20th-century patterned tiles, houses Yin Yang, an organic Chinese restaurant seating 30. Chef Margaret Xu offers what she calls Hong Kong traditional dishes such as yellow earth chicken cooked in a terracotta oven, tea-smoked Japanese pork and deliciously addictive sweet potatoes with sticky rice.

An evening's sailing

Another way to go back in time after dark is to board the Aqua Luna, one of the last Chinese traditional sailing junks to be handcrafted according to original designs.

The 28m-high, red-sailed boat features two wooden decks with full bar; these are among the best spots on the harbour from which to enjoy the Symphony of Lights that takes place at 8 every evening, turning Hong Kong's urban jungle into a beauty pageant for 15 electrifying minutes. The island's waterfront skyscrapers are lit up like Christmas trees.

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Dinner a deux

For a little romance, take a 30-minute drive into the bucolic New Territories past the Kowloon peninsula to reach One Thirty-One, a four-table dining room inside a lone Sino-Portuguese mansion on the waterfront at Three Fathoms Cove. Exposed beams and french doors are the backdrop to the cuisine of chef Gary Cheuk, who has cooked in Michelin-starred kitchens across Europe.

Ingredients from the surrounding organic farm are incorporated into a menu that may include the likes of foie gras swathed in black truffle and served with port-soaked prune on brioche.

A shining star

Hong Kong Island has always grabbed the after-dark spotlight but the groove is slowly gravitating across Victoria Harbour to Kowloon.

While most of the establishments at Elements, a swanky new mall in the West Kowloon reclamation zone, are replicas of ubiquitous brand names, buzz is building around chef Bryan Nagao at D. Diamond Restaurant & Bar, where display cases filled with Damiani fine jewellery decorate the elegant polished-wood dining room.

Holding their own alongside the pricey gems are inventive dishes such as seared Chilean sea bass with crispy pork belly, ricotta and maitake ravioli, pine nut and mint-crusted lamb chops with grilled pumpkin and pea fondue and warm chocolate cake with homemade vanilla ice cream with subtle hints of fresh wasabi.

Lounge around

From D. Diamond, go next door and take the lift to Living Room, the laid-back lounge at WHong Kong, Kowloon's first truly hip hotel. Signature drinks such as Sake To Me, a Japanese-inspired mojito, satisfy the young, multilingual crowd snuggling on overstuffed couches.

If the evening's all become a blur and it's just too hard to get back to your own hotel, bed down in one of the W's 393 ultra-sexy guestrooms. Those with staying power can end the night with a ride up to the rooftop to watch the sun rise from the outdoor infinity pool on the 76th floor. This is surely the perfect way to experience Hong Kong after dark.