What if food could be a lens for understanding culture, memory, and the world around us? Founded in 2024 by sourdough baker and interdisciplinary curator Kiki Ho and film director and International Sake Master Sommelier Nap Wong, Umami Culture Lab is a Hong Kong-based art space where food culture meets contemporary practice.

Through exhibitions, workshops, and curated experiences, the Lab uses fermentation, bread, sake, terroir, and everyday craft as a starting point for deeper conversations — connecting creators, communities, and the places they call home.

What is Umami?

Umami (うま味) — the fifth taste, discovered by Japanese professor Kikunae Ikeda in the early twentieth century — sits quietly alongside sweet, sour, salty, and bitter. Composed of naturally occurring compounds such as glutamate, inosinate, and guanylate, it is found in seafood, meat, mushrooms, tomatoes, and in long-fermented foods like aged cheese, miso, and sake.

Umami is subtle and hard to name. But once tasted, it stays — a lingering savouriness that defines a meal without announcing itself.

Research shows that breast milk is rich in glutamate. If Umami is what we taste first in life, it may be the most primal flavour of all — the original sensory memory. At Umami Culture Lab, we ask: what does creative practice taste like?

We look for it in food.



Bread x Sake x Fermentation
Curated Food Exhibition, Workshop & Select Shop

4/F, Foo Tak Building, 365 Hennessy Road, Wan Chi, Hong Kong

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