I love novels that include food and this is great, the Chinese cultural references and hopping from Hong Kong to London living between both is enlightenly observed. This is different from anything I've read before and I loved the characters and their lifestyles.

Goodbye Chinatown is a novel about food, family, and belonging, as a chef is torn between priorities in a changing world. Amber Fan moved to England from Hong Kong as a child, studied at Oxford, and is now opening a Chinese fusion restaurant in London's Chinatown. Her parents are returning to Hong Kong with young Bobby, but Amber is determined to make it, and even more so when mysterious Celeste offers money towards Amber's restaurant. As the years go on, their lives change, and they are all caught between cultures and secrets.

This is a beautifully written novel that really paints a picture of Chinatown as it has changed over the years, and then of Hong Kong and its changes too. The narrative comes in stages, jumping in time to show how the world changes, and purposefully never quite giving closure from one section to another. I liked the descriptions of food, particularly in the earlier parts of the novel where it is most prevalent, and the way that you get not just Amber's perspective on her food, but also, later, Bobby's perspective on her obsession with food too.

Due to the structure and style, you often feel like you're peeking at the characters rather than getting more deeply to know them. One side character in particular seems important initially and then basically disappears for the rest of the book, so it's not the sort of novel in which everything comes together, but more like a sequence of different events and choices, reflecting life. The political and familial tensions are carefully woven together, not offering answers, but instead showing the complexity of people.

Goodbye Chinatown is a fascinating look at ideas of belonging and authenticity. I think the food angle will draw people in—novels focused on food seem to be having a bit of a moment—and this one offers food as sumptuous description but also as a cultural marker, a passion, and a metaphor.

✨🥢 Goodbye Chinatown by Kit Fan is a beautifully written story about food, family and the longing to belong somewhere, anywhere, that feels like home.

Amber Fan is trying to make a fresh start in London’s Chinatown after her parents return to Hong Kong with her young brother and the secret surrounding his birth.

She throws herself into running her Chinese fusion restaurant, using cooking as a way to make sense of a life split between two places. The food scenes are incredible. Every taste and smell leaps from the page.

Then comes Celeste, a mysterious woman who pays three thousand pounds for a private meal, setting off a chain of questions about identity, desire and ambition. Who is she, and why is she drawn to Amber’s food and to Amber herself.

This is a gorgeous, sensory and emotional read about divided loyalties, cultural pressure and inventing your own language for home.

Read more at The Secret Book Review.

3.75, rounding up to 4.

This book felt like a light sketch from a fine artist; the writing is lyrical and sweeping, but there were significant holes from a lack of exposition that could not be explained away by its experimental style. I felt the characters lacked form and, at times, even felt unreal. Nevertheless, the writing is truly beautiful, and I could appreciate the author's wistful intentions for this novel.

Kit Fan’s Goodbye Chinatown explores events in Hong Kong since the 1997 handover from the British to the Chinese. through the experience of Amber whose parents brought her to London after the horrors of Tiananmen Square in 1989, aged ten,
Amber learned her kitchen skills in the family restaurant which funded her education. In 2001, with her eyes set on a Michelin star, she opens a fusion restaurant, attracting the attention of the daughter of a Chinese multibillionaire who has been steadily buying up Chinatown, and winning her financial backing. Several years on, the financial crash precipitates another global crisis. Amber’s parents have returned to Hong Kong, where they’ve become increasingly divided, her father fatalistically embracing a future controlled by the Chinese; her mother angry at attempts to stamp out the freedom of young protesters willing to die for it.
There are enough evocative descriptions to add this one to my foodie fiction list, but as the novel progresses Hong Kong comes to the fore, its fifty-year period of autonomy eroded by the increasing authoritarianism of its Chinese administration and the brutal suppression of protesters, many so young they’re still at school. Moving and heartfelt, these passages turned Fan’s novel from an enjoyable, polished piece of fiction into something more thought-provoking and involving. There’s no author’s note, but his biographical details tell me that he was born in Hong Kong in 1979, ten years before the Tiananmen Square uprising just as Amber was.

This novel made me become a fan of Kit Fan’s writing within the first few chapters.

The food descriptions, how everyone was trying to find a place in the world where they made sense, were written in such a way that as a reader, I felt these emotions myself (and was also very hungry while reading this!).

Loved!

Thank you to World Editions Group for providing this ARC for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Goodbye Chinatown by Kit Fan is the intimate portrait of the Fan family, who crisscross the globe between England, Hong Kong, and mainland China. Focused mainly around the daughter (and secretly, mother) character, Amber, the story is framed deeply by the trajectory of the culinary career.

Within this story there are three primary topics that are interwoven to create the narrative; cooking, family, and political activism in Hong Kong. Developed to different degrees, the author makes it clear how inextricably linked these three things are. Amber, a chef, is deeply bound to her roots through her childhood in her father’s London Chinatown restaurant, but uses her own cooking to relate to her identity. From the earliest moments, the remnants of the British Colonial system and the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square massacre shape the family’s path and trajectory.

These three different story lines and themes are executed to varying degrees of success. The author’s descriptions of food are lush and detailed, jumping off of the page. The story of Amber working through different types of restaurants is also beautifully framed by the descriptions of the food scene and different types of restaurants. However, the parts of the story containing the family dynamics are the least interesting. For some reason, despite the level of drama and secrecy, this felt like the least developed part of the story. At times the story felt uninspired; taciturn father, parents that are at odds but won’t divorce, etc. I just felt like the arc was very, very predictable once the political elements are taken away.

While I did enjoy this book and believe it to be very tenderly written, it wasn’t particularly gripping. The food elements and discussions of issues for citizens of Hong Kong were very interesting, but I didn’t particularly enjoy the story tying these elements together. 3/5 stars.

I chose this book because of its premise: the story of a chef torn between her "homeland" and the England that raised her, even if not always kindly. I found the concept interesting, especially because it seemed like a reflection on Hong Kong itself, conveyed through the words of one of its fellow citizens.
The book didn't actually convince me right away, it felt very slow-paced although I found Amber's story fascinating. I liked to see a point of view (I was a kid and I don't remember it very well) on SARS and the xenophobia that came out of it and in the very concept of what a 'Chinatown' is. And I enjoyed the second part of it, with Amber struggling between her career and -her son-; and I also appreciated the cosiness of her delicious recipes written between the pages. Then Amber leaves London and her son, and don't get me wrong, Bobby's pov was very appreciated by me, and getting an insight into what Hong Kong's citizens between my age faces daily was very interesting. The ending was the most disappointing part for me. Although it ended "right" it felt incomplete. I wish I got more information on Bobby's side on the protests; Amber thoughts and motivations.. I don't know just...something more.
Anyways it was an entertaining read and I wish that someday it will be translated in italian too, so I could re-read it in my mother tongue.

Goodbye Chinatown spans roughly twenty years in the lives of the Fan family, moving between England, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. It’s quite fast-paced, and I was reasonably engaged throughout, especially in the first half.

The novel weaves together a lot: the aftermath of Tiananmen Square, the 2008 financial crisis, Hong Kong being handed back to China, and later the protests and political activism that shape Bobby’s storyline. In contrast, Amber’s thread focuses more on food and ambition, and her journey towards Michelin stars. I enjoyed those parts a lot; the writing around food and the atmosphere of Chinatown was vivid and comforting in places.

There’s also a strong family element running throughout: secrecy, conflict, parents at odds, and this sense of a family pulled between two countries and two identities. The question of “Where is home?” sits quietly beneath most of the book.

If anything, I found myself wanting more from Amber’s time in Shanghai; those chapters felt quite light, and I would have liked to see that part of her life explored in more depth. Overall, it’s an interesting novel with plenty of drama and movement, but it didn’t fully land for me, hence the three stars.

This is a look into a Hong Kong / British family ranging from 2001 - 2019.
Amber is the protagonist of most of the book, and an avid food lover and chef. Historical fiction is gently woven into a story about belonging and identity.
The pacing was languid, but still very pleasant. I did enjoy reading this book, but I felt like depth was missing at times. For small portions another narrator takes over and while their story is very interesting and relevant, their tone/cadence/speech does not differentiate enough trom Amber unfortunately.