First class dining at Cathay Pacific's The Pier lounge, Hong Kong

There's plenty to like about Cathay Pacific's new The Pier First Class lounge at Hong Kong, which I'd rate as among the world's best first class airport lounges.

You can start with the lounge's elegant and thoughtful design...

... or single out the bar where you can enjoy a pre-flight tipple or two...

... not to mention the relaxing foot massage service...

... and of course those Day Suite nooks.

Read: Inside Cathay Pacific's The Pier First Class Lounge Day Suites

Something which really stands out, however, is the dining room...

... or, rather, the meals served there.

Like the rest of the lounge but for the front desk, the dining room is operated by The Peninsula Hotels group (to be more specific, the group's Peninsula Clubs and Consultancy Services arm).

This makes The Pier one of the relatively and perhaps surprisingly few first class lounges where the food itself is suitably 'first class, five-star' fare.

(It also means you can sample the hotel's own Peninsula Brut champagne, alongside Veuve Clicquot Brut and Moet & Chandon Rose Brut.) 

Here's a sampling of dishes from the all-day dining menu. The prettiest images come courtesy of Cathay Pacific's PR team – the less artful and more 'raw' photos were snapped during a recent visit to the lounge.

The Qantas First Lounge isn't alone in recognising tomatoes and buffalo mozzarella, served with sea salt and balsamico, as a perfect pre-flight appetiser.

A heartier starter is the smoked duck breast served with baby spinach, walnuts and citrus dressing.

The crabmeat and conpoy soup with bamboo mushroom, scallop and prawn sesame toast is a winter warmer that'll satisfy all year round.

Here's another starter: prawn salad served with pomelo citrus, glass noodles and hot and sour dressing. 

At the lounge's official media preview, Cathay Pacific also laid out a series sample dishes from the breakfast menu, including soft poached eggs...

... orange and almond toast dressed with espresso syrup and vanilla bean sauce...

... and this 'Eastern Set' of dim sum, congee and beef tenderloin noodles plus the ever-present deep-fried dough stick.

Ready to tackle the all-day menu? The stir-fried tofu with Asian greens, chili and five-spice seasoning has a little kick.

Here's the wok fried beef tenderloin with green chili and pepper sauce.

And finally, char-grilled chicken with sun-dried tomato and cheese stuffing, cured ham avocado and corn salsa.

And onto desserts: try the classic Asian dish of 'mango sticky rice' with purple rice and coconut milk...

... or a traditional vanilla panna cotta with passionfruit jelly and lemon sorbet.

Finish that off with a barista-poured coffee and we reckon you'll be good to go – or at least, to head to the bar!

Also read

• Cathay Pacific's mod make-over for The Pier Business Class lounge
• New Cathay Pacific London Heathrow lounges for early 2016
• Cathay Pacific to launch new business class in February 2016 

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David Flynn

David Flynn is the Editor-in-Chief of Executive Traveller and a bit of a travel tragic with a weakness for good coffee, shopping and lychee martinis.