The Soho cocktail bar built around an invented character and a menu that reads like a short story.
Published Dec 18, 2025 · Last reviewed Mar 1, 2026 · How we pick bars · by Mei-Lin Zhao
Madame X sits on the upper Soho stretch of Hollywood Road, a small-format cocktail bar opened around the conceit of an invented character whose biography drives the cocktail menu. Each drink is named for a chapter or relationship in the fictional Madame X's life; the menu reads in two pages of narrative copy before it reads as a list. Sandeep Hathiramani, the operator, has been profiled by Class Magazine and Tatler Asia as one of the city's character-driven cocktail concepts.
The right visitor wants the cocktail menu read out by the bartender, a slow pace, and the design and glassware to be part of the night. The wrong visitor wants a fast classic round, the room is built around the narrative and the speed of service is paced to it, or a quiet conversational corner, since the small format gets two-deep by 22:00 weekends.
One small room with a long bar, banquettes around the edge and theatrical lighting; the design uses period portraiture, framed letters and a back bar of bespoke glassware to support the Madame X conceit. Tatler Asia's bar feature describes the room as 'committed to the story, down to the last coupe', the right read.
Order from the narrative section of the menu rather than the back-page classics, the named cocktails (HK$160–195) are the build the bar is designed around. r/HongKong's monthly cocktail thread consistently flags the second-chapter cocktail as the recurring recommendation; Class Magazine's review highlighted the glassware-paired pours as 'the move' for first visits.
Skip the back-page classics, they're competent but they aren't the reason the room exists. Small plates (HK$140–220) are designed around the menu's chapters and work as round-three food rather than a dinner sub.
Through 20:30 the bar reads as small-group date night and cocktail tourists working through the narrative menu. From 21:30 the room shifts to a slightly younger, dressed-up Hong Kong Island local crowd doing a second-bar stop after a Soho dinner. Tatler Asia notes the post-22:00 hour as 'when the room is most itself', the narrative pacing lands best when the bar is full but not three-deep.