“I wouldn’t change anything”: The making of Hope Group

Hope & Sesame’s first night in Guangzhou was chaos: two employees, and one quit after the first shift. Today the bar is No. 1 on Asia’s 50 Best Bars 2026, crowned at Wynn Palace in Macao this July.

Co-founder Bastien Ciocca takes us from its Cantonese café-inspired beginnings to San You, where he is rethinking Chinese bartending from scratch. “All the drama, all the tough times we had made us who we are,” he says. “I wouldn’t change anything.”