In kitchens throughout Hong Kong the line between haute cuisine and homey grub is blurring. Whether it's for new ingredients, techniques or flavours, the city's best chefs are looking towards the latter for inspiration.

'Fine dining is being 'casualed out' and casual cuisine is going upscale,' says Eric Johnson, chef and co-owner of the Union J restaurant, which opened in Lan Kwai Fong last month.

He and pastry chef Jason Casey have an impressive pedigree earned in five-star establishments, most recently at Jean Georges in Shanghai. But for their first venture on their own they opted for a more relaxed approach. The highlight of the drinks list isn't a bottle of rare wine, but a selection of homemade sodas in flavours such as green apple and elderflower.

At Michelin two-star restaurant Bo Innovation, chef Alvin Leung Jnr has been experimenting with what he calls 'peasant food' since his debut in 2001. For one of his signature dishes, he elevates the simple cheung fun (rice flour roll), typically found at local dim sum joints by adding black truffle sauce and medallions of Wagyu steak. 'If you only use rich and luxurious ingredients, you end up with excess,' he says. 'There always needs to be some excitement and some peace and quiet - otherwise you'll have a heart attack.'

'It was Ferran Adria [the chef at El Bulli restaurant in Spain] who first started turning to downmarket products for inspiration in the 90s,' says Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong executive chef Uwe Opocensky, who trained under Adria. 'Chips, crackers, tapioca balls - all those commercially packaged goods you see in the supermarkets - made their way onto [Adria's] tables but, of course, in different forms and flavours.'

Opocensky says such prosaic foods are perfect for updating modern dishes because of their nostalgic associations. He says: 'To make cuisine interesting but still enjoyable we have to build a bridge between the weird and the wonderful. This is much easier to do with commercial items you see every day rather than rare exotic ingredients. Almost everybody has eaten pop rocks [carbonated candy] or cotton candy as a child, so it is instantly relatable and playful.'

Cotton candy and pop rocks both appear on Opocensky's menu - but the cotton candy is foie gras-flavoured and the pop rocks are incorporated into the ganache of his chocolate bonbons. He also reinvents his own version of a Bounty Bar, which he serves in the Krug Room restaurant.

'Inspiration from these 'industrial' foods isn't just using them as ingredients in recipes, but also studying their cooking techniques,' Opocensky adds. 'A lot of mass-produced foods have huge research teams behind them, so they have the budget and facilities to make more cooking discoveries than the kitchen of one restaurant.'

Chefs are also taking presentation cues from casual dining. At Union J, the paper takeaway boxes used for Chinese food in the US have become serving containers for an ice cream dessert that Casey calls 'an instant hit'.

'The whole atmosphere of the traditional high-end dining culture is finished,' says Goldstein. 'Comfort is always better than decadence. Ten different forks for a place setting - how stuffy and stressful is that?'

Sevva owner Bonnie Gokson says toning down opulence doesn't necessarily decrease the value of a dining experience. 'For me, upscale dining never meant having to be at a place with branded crockery and tables under some big crystal chandeliers, if one could only appreciate quality over quantity.'

The down-to-earth spirit of this cooking trend is compatible with the economically frugal times, but be warned: this kind of food isn't always cheap. At Bo Innovation tasting menus start at HK$680 for four appetisers and one main course and go to HK$1,080 for the chef's 12-course menu.

'Lowbrow ingredients don't equal inexpensive or not tasty food,' Leung says. 'In fact, it requires even more skill to make something simple into something spectacular.'

'All the best chefs have always known how to work with the cheaper cuts of meat. It's easy to cook a piece of lobster, spoon some caviar on top and add some gold leaf to fancy it up. But to take tripe or intestines and make them delicious - that takes a lot more labour and thought,' says Opocensky.

Restaurants are also dressing up humble dishes. At Sevva, a bowl of claypot rice costs HK$280 and the Shanghainese wontons are HK$220. Gokson says: 'We use two to three chickens to make the [claypot rice] broth with a little Yunnan ham and it takes hours to brew. [We also use] tiny freshwater shrimps, sliced abalone, dried scallops, Chinese mushrooms, hand-picked baby peas and thin slices of fresh chicken from Lung Kong. That's why we believe people can tell the difference.'

Customers are gobbling it up. 'People in Asia are becoming more sophisticated with their taste in food,' says Casey. 'They aren't just blindly following brand names or preconceived notions of what's good or not any more. They are letting their taste buds be the judge.'

Opocensky says chefs still have to exercise caution when integrating novelty items into their recipes. 'Not everything works,' he says. 'I still can't imagine people ordering up pig's feet for a romantic dinner at a first-class restaurant. And Hongkongers are very price savvy, so if you give them fish balls they had better be completely different from the kind the street-side hawkers sell.

'When it comes to food, I am easily impressed but seldom inspired,' says Opocensky. 'At those rare times when right parts of fine dining and low-end cuisine cross over - that, for me, is inspiring.'

Where to eat it

Bo Innovation

2/F J Residence, 60 Johnston Rd, Wan Chai, tel: 2850 8371 Crossover dishes: Wagyu beef and cheung fun with black truffle sauce, lap mei fan (crisped rice with Chinese sausage powder), dan dan noodles

Krug Room

Mandarin Oriental, 5 Connaught Rd, Central, tel: 2825 4041 Crossover dishes: makeup dessert, flower pot salad, next Bounty bar

Mandarin Cake Shop

Mandarin Oriental, 5 Connaught Rd, Central, tel: 2825 4041 Crossover dish: Raw (pop rocks chocolates)

Sevva

25/F Prince's Building, 10 Chater Rd, Central, tel: 2537 1388 Crossover dishes: claypot rice, Shanghainese wontons, pork chop with tomato rice

Tuscany by H

Grand Progress Building, Shop A&B, G/F 58-62 D'Aguilar St, Central, tel: 2522 9798 Crossover dishes: creme brulee with Milo ice cream

Union J

1/F California Tower, 30-32 D'Aguilar St, Central, tel: 2537 2368 Crossover dishes: fresh fruit sodas, ABC ice cream takeaway box