Hong Kong A La Carte Private Tours - French + English Speaking Guides in Hong Kong
Alexandra and Stephanie, the founders and a company built after a chance meeting
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A comprehensive look at Hong Kong A La Carte Private Tours going into 2027
Foreword by Jamie
Your city. Your menu. Your day. A proper look at Alexandra, Stephanie and the private tour company they built.
You are probably getting the impression by now that I know a lot of great people in the Private Tour Industry in Hong Kong and here is another company I am going to recommend
I have written about Hong Kong A La Carte before. Those earlier posts did a polite job of pointing people at the website and saying the ladies were rather good, which they are, and then I more or less stopped. They have not dated well. The company has moved on, the reviews have piled up, Alexandra has picked up a proper industry award in Hong Kong, and the work itself is more interesting than a short pat on the back. This is the refresh.
I have lived in Hong Kong since 2nd January 1972. I have been offering private tours since 2010, first tour on 4th April 2011, and I have now passed 2,400 private tours. I know the difference between a company that prints the word bespoke and a company that actually builds the day after the conversation. Alexandra Malandain and Stephanie Frossard do the second thing. I have met them a number of times over the years. We get on. That is not why I am writing this. I am writing it because, if a guest of mine asks who else I would trust with a French speaking family, a layover, a first week in the city or a day that has to include both Victoria Peak and a walled village, their name is right up there on the list.
One other observation before we get into the meat of it, and I have said this quietly to friends in the trade for years. A striking number of the private tour companies in this city that I actually respect are run by women. Not as a marketing line. As a pattern. Laura at Hello Hong Kong Tours. Amy at Hong Kong Greeters, Sabrina at Hong Kong Trails and Tours. Cecilia of Hong Kong Foodie Tours, Ashley of Ashley M Tours and Alexandra and Stephanie here. Different temperaments, different languages, different patches of the city, same refusal to send a guest out with a script and a flag. Draw your own conclusions. I have drawn mine.
How two neighbours ended up with a Private Tour company
Alexandra did not wash up here on a working holiday and decide guiding looked fun. She started in the travel trade in London, had already been building VIP days in Hong Kong from 2011, first saw the city in 1992, came back in 1997 in the months before the handover, and settled in 2000. That is a long look at the place before anyone paid her to talk about it.
Stephanie arrived in 2007 with her family, originally pointed at Japan. Hong Kong did what Hong Kong does to certain people. It kept her. She is an engineer by training, France then a master's in computing in Kyoto, and then she did the less obvious thing and started freelance guiding in 2009, history, culture and hiking. If that combination sounds unlikely on paper, it makes complete sense once you have spent a day with her. The city rewards people who can hold a technical fact and a human story in the same sentence.
They met as neighbours in 2014. The conversations that follow when two people already know the place well are usually the same. Why are so many visitors leaving with only the postcard. Why does the day always start at the same statue. Why can a guest not have the cemetery, the market, the Peak tram queue strategy and a proper talk about housing in the same afternoon. In 2017, over a lunch they still describe as the moment it lined up, they launched Hong Kong A La Carte. I had already been at this for 6 or 7 years by then. They were not copying anyone. They were naming the method they already preferred. The guest chooses the menu. The guide writes the day.
What the name actually commits them to
A la carte is a dangerous name if you then sell three fixed loops and call it custom. Their site is built the other way round. Signature days for people who want the city in 3 hours, 5 hours or 8 hours. Expert days for people who want a subject. Countryside days for people who want islands and the New Territories. Days beyond the border. Layovers and cruise calls. And a proper a la carte list for the guest who wants to mix Victoria Peak with Hollywood Road, a cemetery, dim sum, The Tai O Fishing Village, a photo walk or the container port.
The bit that matters is the conversation before the meter starts. First visit or fifth. Children or not. How many days in the city. What they have already read. Whether they want geopolitics or they want to laugh. Whether the knees will do steps. Weather on the morning. That is how a good private day is built in this town and it is how they work. Plans get moved when the sky turns or a guest lights up at the third stop. That sounds simple. Most operators cannot actually do it because the day was sold as a product, not as a piece of work.
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Alexandra and Stephanie of A La Carte Private Tours going into 2027
The two founders, and why the Guide Team matters
Alexandra brings the travel trade spine. She knows how a day has to fit around a hotel lobby, a cruise gangway or a 7 hour layover that cannot run late. She can hold a room. In March 2026 the Travel Industry Authority ran the first Tour Guide and Tour Escort Commendation Scheme and Alexandra was named an Outstanding Tour Guide of Hong Kong. I was pleased for her and I said so at the time. Awards in this town can be noisy. This one, at least, went to someone who still walks the streets she talks about.
Stephanie is on the same level as a guide, and I want that said plainly because awards attach to one name and companies are not one name. Guests talk about her history, her hiking, her willingness to go to Shenzhen in Mainland China or the north east New Territories and treat it as a real day rather than a side trip. Architecture, housing, money, temples, food stalls, the present tense of the city. She does not lecture. She talks.
I have called them the French Ladies for years. They have never objected and I am keeping the phrase. Stephanie has said she is French. Alexandra has been inside Hong Kong's French community for years, including a stint as President of UFE Hong Kong and Macao, and she works in French as easily as she does in English. Between them they have built the private tour company that French speaking families in this city actually use.
A good founder pair still fails if the other guides are filler. That is not the case here. Part of why the company has held its reputation is the Guide Team. French and English as the house languages, with Spanish, Portuguese, Cantonese and Mandarin available through the wider team. That is not a footnote. A French family that can spend the day in their own language, with a guide who actually lives here, is getting a different day from the same family being towed around in broken English behind a flag. I do not speak Cantonese after 54 years of living in Hong Kong and I have never pretended otherwise. I also know what it means when a guest can stop translating and start listening.
The French speaking market is not a niche. It is a moat.
Hong Kong A La Carte does a great many days for French citizens and other francophone guests. Read the reviews and you hear it immediately. Families from France, Switzerland, Belgium. Couples extending a stay. People who chose a French speaking guide on purpose and then discovered they had also hired someone who knew the city. In a market stuffed with English language walking tours, that is a structural advantage. It is also why I keep sending certain guests in their direction. I can do the English speaking day. I cannot do that day in French, and I would rather a guest have the right guide than a loyal one.
There is a left field point here that the industry does not talk about enough. Language is not only courtesy. It changes what you are allowed to discuss. Politics, money, schooling, why a building looks the way it does, why a market is emptying out. Guests ask better questions in the language they think in. Alexandra and Stephanie have built a company that can answer those questions in two languages without dropping the standard. That is rarer than the websites admit.
What they actually take people to see
An overview is useful because the website is broad and first time visitors get lost in it. In practice the work sits in six drawers.
Signature days. Hong Kong in 3 hours. Kowloon in 3 hours. Hong Kong in 5 hours. Hong Kong and Kowloon in 7 hours. Lantau Island. Hong Kong by night. These are the first timer frames. Central, Sheung Wan, Victoria Peak, the Star Ferry, Tsim Sha Tsui, Ngong Ping, Tai O Fishing Village when the day can take it. The value is not the stop list. The value is what gets said between the stops.
Expert days. This is where the company shows its range. French presence in Hong Kong. Jordan and Yau Ma Tei. Traditional Chinese medicine. Kowloon Walled City. Cemeteries. Street art. West Kowloon. History and heritage. The Second World War. Ghosts, beliefs and local superstition. Food. Tai Po. Instagram led photo walks. Visit and play days for families. A cemeteries tour in this city is not gloomy tourism. The colonial and Chinese burial grounds are one of the fastest ways to understand who came here, who stayed, and who the official story leaves out. I have always liked operators who will take a guest to a graveyard without apologising for it.
Countryside and islands. Lantau Island beyond the Buddha. Lamma. Cheung Chau. Secluded New Territories. Cycling. Abandoned villages. Hiking. Hong Kong is not only granite and glass. Anyone who has lived here knows that, and still most visitors never get north of Sha Tin in any meaningful way. Sha Tau Kok, Lai Chi Wo and the north east have started to appear in their work, which is as it should be. The border country is part of the story now whether the brochures like it or not.
Beyond Hong Kong. Macau. and then into Mainland China, Shenzhen city. Dapeng Peninsula. Guangzhou. Useful for guests with a spare day and a visa situation that allows it. Shenzhen in particular is the conversation a lot of first timers do not know they need. The contrast with Hong Kong is the point.
Layovers and cruise calls. This is unglamorous, operationally tight work and they are set up for it. Airport to city and back. Public transport or a car if the clock demands it. The guest who has 7 hours does not want a philosophy seminar. They want the harbour, a street, a meal, Victoria Peak if the queue and the weather will play, and a guide who is watching the time.
Corporate, scavenger hunts and the pandemic leftover that earned its keep. When travel stopped they did not sit on their hands. They built scavenger hunts for people already stuck in the city. First year, 180 participants. The format stayed on as birthdays and team building. I like that story because it is the opposite of the usual Covid paragraph. They made a product for the people who were here, not a sad holding page for the people who were not.
How the days tend to run
Default mode is on foot and on public transport. MTR, the street tram, Star Ferry, bus. A private car can be arranged and should be when mobility or a cruise clock requires it. For most guests the public system is not a hardship. It is the city. You learn more in a tram than you do in the back of a people carrier watching tunnels go by.
They will cover the famous places. I would rather an honest operator took you to Victoria Peak properly than pretended the Peak did not exist. The difference is the surrounding talk. Feng shui on a bank building. Why public housing looks the way it does. Why a temple is busy on one day and empty on another. What the handover actually felt like if you were here. What the last few years have done to shops, schools and the people who serve the visitor economy. Guests mention that range again and again. Architecture, socio economics, food, art, sport, the present tense. Not a binder of dates.
The record, without dressing it up
Figures they publish on their own site, and the public review record as it stood when I wrote this:
Founded 2017, so coming up to a decade under this name
Travel Agents Registry licence 354230
Published totals: 8,595 clients and 1,950 tours
Tripadvisor rating 5.0 out of 5, with roughly 375 reviews
Regularly sitting around 4th among several hundred tours and activities in Hong Kong
House languages French and English, with Spanish, Portuguese, Cantonese and Mandarin through the Guide Team
Alexandra named an Outstanding Tour Guide of Hong Kong, March 2026, inaugural Travel Industry Authority scheme
Review scores are not the whole truth in this trade. Anyone who has been around long enough has watched thin operators rent a good month. What I look for is the shape of the comments over years. Here the shape is consistent. Knowledge without showing off. Flexibility when a child melts or the weather turns. A recap after the day, which guests notice because most guides never bother. French speaking guests who felt they had a friend in the city, not a contractor. That is the pattern.
Charisma, without the brochure version
Every private tour company that lasts in Hong Kong has a founder guests can describe afterwards. Not a logo. A person. Alexandra and Stephanie are that. Warm, organised, bilingual, slightly mischievous when the day allows it, serious when the subject requires it. They are not reciting. They have lived here long enough that the anecdotes have weight. That is the job, in the end. Anyone can hire a car or coach. Not everyone can hold a family's attention from Statue Square to a temple to a bowl of noodles and send them back to the hotel still talking.
I should also say what they are not. They are not the cheapest option in town and they should not be. A proper private day in Hong Kong, with a licensed operator and a guide who has done the reading, is a professional service. They quote in Hong Kong dollars after the conversation, and they will take card, cash in HK$ or bank transfer.
Book them direct. I mean it.
Like every serious private operator I know in this city, Alexandra and Stephanie would much rather you booked through their own website than through an OTA such as Viator or Get Your Guide. I will keep saying this until I am bored of my own voice. The OTA takes a slice, the message gets filtered, the flexibility gets harder, and when something on the ground needs a human decision you are writing into a portal. Direct means you are talking to the people who will actually build the day. Direct means the money stays with the guides who walk it. Direct means if the typhoon signal goes up you are not arguing with a chatbot in another time zone.
Spend half an hour on their site. Look at the signature days and then look at the expert list. Write to them with the truth. First time, 2 adults and a teenager, 6 hours, French, interested in history and food, not interested in shopping. Or a layover, 1 person, English, wants Victoria Peak and Sheung Wan and does not want to miss the flight. They will come back with a shape and a price. That is how this should work.
A few thoughts from the cheap seats
If I am being useful rather than merely complimentary, here is what I would tell a guest, and what I would tell the company if we were sitting over coffee.
For guests. If you only have one day, do not try to eat the whole menu. A 8 hour Hong Kong and Kowloon day, or a Lantau day done properly with Tai O Fishing Village, will stay with you longer than a frantic sweep. If you have 2 days, split the city and the islands. If you speak French, say so immediately and ask for Alexandra, Stephanie or one of the French speaking Guide Team. If you care about the less photographed New Territories, say that too. They will go.
For the company, from someone who writes about this city most evenings. The website is broad and the news page is thin. That is a missed trick. They have the raw material for short, dated field notes. A week in Sha Tau Kok. What a French family asked in Central this month. Why a cemeteries day works. The award. The scavenger hunts. Guests already write better copy in the reviews than most operators put on their own home page. Harvest it.
One more left field comment.
Hong Kong still does not know what to do with the fact that a large share of its best small tourism businesses are run by women who were not born here and stayed anyway. Alexandra from the travel trade. Stephanie via Japan and an engineering degree. Laura. Sabrina. Amy. Cecilia. Ashley and Others. The official story of tourism here still sounds like a bureau. The actual story, on the pavement, is often two people with a phone and a standard they will not drop. I find that rather hopeful.
How to reach them
Hong Kong A La Carte
Website: hkalacarte.com
Email: contact@hkalacarte.com
Telephone: +852 2798 9828
Instagram: hkalacarte
Facebook: Hong Kong A La Carte
Tripadvisor: Hong Kong a la Carte, Private and Bespoke Tours
Travel Agents Registry licence: 354230
Booking is treated as confirmed only once they have sent written confirmation and payment has landed. Pay online by card, in cash in Hong Kong dollars, or by bank transfer. If mobility is an issue, write first. They will talk through access and, where needed, add a chauffeured car.
So there you go
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Go here for the Hong Kong Michelin Restaurant Guide which includes the Bib Gourmand Category
I do not do Food Tours in Hong Kong but I know people that do!
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The information above can be shown to restaurant managers in Hong Kong if you are intolerant to gluten and nuts,
I do not do food tours as mentioned above, I have very specific reasons and part of it is that I do not speak Cantonese or write Chinese, I am from Yorkshire in England and I lack the language gene and it is not through lack of trying and yes a lot of restaurants do not have English menu’s or staff who speak conversational English.
.. and yet I have eaten at close to 1,400 restaurants in Hong Kong since January 2nd 1972, my wife was born in Hong Kong and we have been together over 40 years and her first language is Cantonese and a lot of her family are Chinese or half Chinese so I have never had much of an issue!
This does not translate to doing food tours though, yes, I could do them, no problem there but they would never ever be as good as the food tours done by my friends (see the 3 links above) most of their awesome guides are locally born Hong Kong Chinese and obviously food culture is part of their DNA, it is impossible for me to compete with that!
So please feel free to contact them for food tours
I do not do Hiking Tours in Hong Kong but I know someone that does!
I do not do Hiking Tours, never have and never will even though I used to go Hiking a lot when I was a lot younger, The Hong Kong Government is promoting hiking tours so I urge you to contact my friend Sabrina at Hong Kong Trails and Tours, she is a long time Hong Kong resident and and a very experienced hiker with close to 700 Hikes in 15+ years under her belt, please click on the link below
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