The Night Hikki Handed Its Bar To Hong Kong’s Zuma

The bar takeover has become one of hospitality’s favourite tricks. Fly a bartender in, hand them the keys for a night, let them loose on someone else’s shelf of spirits, and watch two very different drinking cultures collide in a single glass. Done well, it is less a marketing exercise and more a genuine exchange, a chance for a city’s regulars to taste what a bar on the other side of the world has been perfecting for years. Hikki in Malviya Nagar’s Eldeco Centre has leaned into this format, building an entire series called Global Takeover around the idea that Delhi deserves a seat at the table alongside the world’s more established cocktail capitals. Recently, that series hit its fourth edition, and this time the guest brought a resume that stretched from Minsk to Hong Kong.

The Man Behind The Bar 

Every great bartender origin story needs an unlikely spark, and Andrei Makarevich’s is a good one. He started out in 2008 as a hotel waiter in Belarus, watching the bartenders work with the kind of fascination usually reserved for magicians. Then he watched the film “Cocktail” and decided, like a surprising number of bartenders of a certain generation, that mixology was his calling. A bartending course in Ukraine and a stint at City Space in Moscow led him to Zuma Abu Dhabi in 2014, where his career picked up serious momentum. The Middle East, New York, and finally Hong Kong in 2021, where he now runs the bar programme at one of Asia’s most talked about Japanese dining destinations.

Zuma itself is not just another restaurant chasing the izakaya trend. Rainer Becker built the brand in 2002 on the idea that Japanese sharing culture, casual on the surface but obsessively precise underneath, could travel anywhere and still feel authentic. Dubai’s Zuma sits on the San Pellegrino World’s 50 Best list. Hong Kong’s has its own cult following. Makarevich has spent over a decade inside that machine, picking up techniques from every city he has poured drinks in, which is exactly the kind of global cocktail passport that makes a takeover worth showing up for.

Inside Hikki

Hikki itself is not a subtle room, and it was never meant to be. The space is built around a Japanese-Peruvian fantasy, with all-red tiles, fluted wood, and tropical greens set against expansive mirrors. A striking olive tree, a nod to Peru, anchors the space as its centrepiece, while sculptural hanging lights and a layered, fringed chandelier cast warm light across a black-and-maroon interior. The bar itself stretches from one end of the room to the other, backed by mirrors and stacked with bottles, less a service counter and more a stage. It is a space designed to shift moods across a single evening, intimate enough for a romantic dinner, and loud enough to swallow a Friday night crowd whole. Handing that stage to a bartender from Hong Kong for one night only was always going to be a spectacle.

What Landed In The Glass

The menu opened with the Mango Picante: jalapeno-infused Don Julio Blanco, raspberry and orange, clarified with mango milk into something that looked deceptively gentle and carried a slow, creeping heat. The Yuzu Paloma took the classic tequila and grapefruit soda combo and gave it a citrus-sharp Japanese accent with yuzu and a rim of Himalayan salt, proof that a familiar format can still surprise you when someone actually cares about the details.

Then came the Guava Gimlet, built on Tanqueray London Dry with pink guava and fresh lime, topped with a calpico passionfruit foam that turned a cocktail into something closer to dessert. For anyone chasing familiar comfort by the end of the night, the Ringo Highball delivered, pairing Johnnie Walker Black Label with green apple and yuzu over soda for an easy, long drinking finish. Four cocktails, four completely different moods, zero filler.

The food kept pace. Mushroom and water chestnut gyozas came stuffed with cream cheese, black fungus and truffle oil, an earthy bite that grounded the citrus-forward drinks. The three cheese cigar roll, a mix of mozzarella, cheddar, and scamorza finished with spicy miso, was the kind of shareable, slightly indulgent plate that disappears from the table within minutes of arriving. Both dishes sat comfortably within Hikki’s own Japanese Peruvian identity, making the collaboration feel like two menus that were always going to get along, in a room built to make the whole thing feel like an event rather than just another Thursday night out.

And just like that, the bar was back to being Hikki’s own. Four cocktails, a couple of shared plates, and one very well-travelled bartender were enough to make the point: a takeover doesn’t need to drag on to land. Makarevich showed up with a decade of Zuma DNA in his shaker and made it work in a room that had never seen him before. Hikki, on its end, didn’t try to compete with what he brought; it just made space for it. That’s really the whole trick behind Global Takeover: get two bars that already know what they’re doing out of their comfort zones for one night, and let the drinks do the talking. Four editions deep, it’s working. Here’s hoping the fifth brings someone equally worth the trip.

Cheers!

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