What to Wear
 

for dinner at nice upscale restaurants in Hong Kong?

The same sorts of things you'd wear at home for a nice, upscale restaurant.

Jacket and tie would fit in any where.

That's the question -- does my husband need to bring a jacket & tie? Since we'd like to travel light, and we're going to be in Vietnam for 2 weeks after spending 3 days in HK he'd like to avoid having to bring a jacket if he doesn't have to. I'd like to be able to just wear a nice pair of pants & maybe a lightweight sweater set, rather than something fancier. We'll be there in February. We're from the East Coast US, so the HK weather in Feb seems mild to us.

unless you are going to the penn or similar i see no reason for a jacket and tie.... flip flops might not work however

I'd wear a jacket and tie if I were to have dinner at one of the best restaurants in one of the 5* hotels. Less requirement for the lady.

February can be quite chilly in Hong Kong. You will all need some kind of jacket anyways, so why not just bring a nicer one so you can wear to dinner at the nicest restaurants in HK?

At the very highest-end, typically French, restaurants such as Petrus or Gaddi's, jackets are mandatory. These places are often in hotels (in these cases, Shang & Pen), and typically the same hotels will also have other very good restaurants where the dress code is less rigorous -- for example, Nadaman at the Shangri-La or Felix at the Peninsula.

At top end Chinese restaurant (Hutong or Shang Palace, for example), I don't recall jackets being required.

In most upscale places "smart casual" is the rule. (Whatever that means.)

The jacket/tie requirement is case by case. It's rare in Hong Kong now, but the old guard still observes.

Two other random requirements I encountered when I used to entertain clients in Hong Kong were no sportshoes (like running shoes) and no collarless shirts (like T-shirts), both of which are worn fairly commonly at casual occasions in the US.

Also, the aircon in Hong Kong is ARCTIC, even in February. Take a sweater or a shawl.

We're thinking nice Chinese restaurant like Tang Court or the restaurant Cicerone mentioned in Hullet House -- not Gaddi or Petrus.

In that case smart casual will do.