Meet three of Hong Kong’s best chefas

This article is part of FT Globetrotter’s Hong Kong Guide

Ask Michelle Garnaut, the Pioneer Chef and Australian restorer, how much has evolved the gastronomic scene of Hong Kong, particularly from the point of view of female chefs, since he opened m on the margin, the first independent fine high high restaurant outside A hotel in a hotel at a hotel. The City – In 1989. A very ironic snort can be expected by response, very worldly and very expressive. “At that time, cooking was not even seen as proper job,” she says. “There were practically no women involved. He had a young talented chef, a place, who stopped becoming a KFC manager because his parents thought that any management paper was more respectable than being a chef. ”

Garnaut believes that it took more than 20 years to change such attitudes. At that time a generational change occurred, given the impetus for the emergence of social networks. Successful chefs, mostly men, but a growing number of women also became increasingly visible. Then, in 2013, Vicky Lau received his first Michelin star in Tate dining room. A second star continued in 2021. It would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of Lau’s example for the candidates for female chefas not only in Hong Kong but also in Asia. Today launches the Hong Kong restaurants scene and many of its most exciting and talented chefs are women. Meet three of the best.

May chow

“Sexy. Funny. Deeply Chinese but also international. With a sense of humor.” May Chow is describing, among the snacks of a pork belly Bao, the atmosphere of Little Bao, its restaurant based in Bao of instant classic, which opened in 2013 and has been going gangbusters, in a couple of iterations and locations, since then.

There are two ways to do it as a chef in Hong Kong, Chow says: “You can be the best in class or the first to market.” She was a bit of both, combining skill and novelty when raising and preparing the humble Bao, a steamed bun served with a meat or fish filling, never seen before. She pushed Bao into the territory of hamburgers, hamburger in the territory of Bao, showing the joys of each in the process, a notable achievement of diplomacy but American. The Bao itself remained familiar, pillow and productive but structured and inflatable, the childhood bao of each Hongkonger. The fillings. . . Well, sometimes, as with the stewed pork bacon, they were also familiar; Sometimes not so much, as with Castaño Tiramisú ice cream.

The chow born in Canada is Franco in its support for diversity and rights LBGTQ+. “The best thing to be a chef who is also an entrepreneur is that you can create your own culture,” she says. “Women thrive in the right culture. And there is more than to succeed. Of course, you can be competitive, strong, decisive. But you don’t have to be horrible. “This philosophy, the Tao de Little Bao, so to speak, resonates far beyond the restaurant scene.” The important thing is to recognize that we all have an option, “he continues.” We can choose better. I hope that through my own example I can help transmit that message. ” Little Bao, 1–3 Shin Hing Street, Central; Little Bao Dinener, 9 Kingston Street, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong. Website; Instructions

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Archan Chan

For Anglophone ears, the name Ho Lee Fook sounds like a colloquial exclamation of astonishment. More or less translated, it means “good fortune for your mouth.” With regard to the restaurant of that name, literal and figurative associations are perfect. All about this beloved Institution of Elgin Street, which celebrates its tenth birthday this year (a mature old age for a restaurant in Hong Kong), it is about having fun and delight, from the cheerful decoration (the famous wall of golden luck cats) and the soundtrack of Singgalong (nostalgic graph arrives) to the sublimely executed menu (“Cantonese food would be in a playful environment,” as the executive chef says Chan).

Although he uses his seriousness lightly, he is not wrong: here is a chef of exceptional skills and ambition However, to admit, admit fair. . . works. Consider your opinion about King Summy-Fry, one of those classics of all time in Hong Kong with which freedoms are not, as a general rule, taken. Chan cheerfully replaces the traditional squid with abulon and waste conventional anacardians in favor of peanut shoots. The one presents a new layer of delicious and richly textured opulence, the other is an element of momentary surprise and eyebrows that is quickly followed by a “Why did nobody think about that before?” sense of inevitability. The result is nothing less than a peaceful revolution between two sticks. Ho Lee Fook in fact.

The arrival of Chan to Ho Lee Fook in 2021 was a return home after more than a decade in Australia and Singapore. The cosmopolitanism of his experience is reflected in the composition of his brigade in Ho Lee Fook. English is the frank language. The restaurant design is such that they and their flames woks are the first things you see when you arrive, agitated cats come next, and good collective vibrations are as thick in the air as the smoke of the wok. This printing of the camaraderie surely begins at the top. Chan speaks of his four principles of respect, care, equity and honesty: “It is an intense job. A bit of empathy makes everything much easier. “A touch of genius does not hurt either. Ho Lee Fook, 3-5 Elgin Street, Central. Website; Instructions

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Phan dye

“We like to classify things. That is human nature. But many of us are too fast to classify Sichuan’s kitchen. There is more than spicy, “says Theign Phan, executive chef of the Grand Majestic Sichuan, a more loved regional temple in China, with jewelry tones and with Gucci paper.

Although proud to be among the growing number of female chefs working at the highest level in Hong Kong, she is so distrustful of gender generalizations about the profession as she is of lazy stereotypes of Sichuan’s kitchen. “When I grew up, they taught me to believe that you can do whatever you want, as long as you do well,” she says. “It is up to us to change the narrative.”

Like a bad guy raised in Singapore, Phan sees herself, like the head of a Sichuan kitchen in a Hong Kong restaurant, not as much as a stranger but as a translator. There is also something of the explorer about her: an explorer excited for the things she has discovered and anxious to disseminate her findings with others. “Because there is a lot to share,” she says. “Did you know that there are no less than 24 different flavors in Sichuan’s kitchen?” The sauce for the bang bang chicken, for example, that basic element of sichuan infinitely more of Sichuan of climbing chicken and cucumber Julienned, mostly belongs to the category of “strange taste”, which covers spicy flavors, numbers, tasty, sweet , garlic, flavors. .

Phan admits that there is a ability to order well in a Sichuan restaurant, but insists that it is not difficult to collect. It is about administering flavor and texture contrasts. Therefore, you can start with a cold snack like cucumber beaten (garlic, viscous, crispy, aqueous), followed first by Kung Pao prawns with anacardos (an unlikely but undeniably harmonious marriage of Lichi flavor with touches of grain of sichuan and chiles), and then by map Tofu with beef (the slippery texture and in the form of tafu gelatin compensated by Chilli-Bean Chile Pasta). Steamed rice is, of course, a constant everywhere: the essential thread in the tapestry. And for the Buddine, perhaps the fungus of the silver ear with chrysanthemum resin and rock sugar soup (sweet, floral, slightly herbaceous and in all aspects as intriguing as his name could lead him to wait).

Complex? Certainly. Difficult? You are welcome. Phan and the entire Grand Majestic team are present to advise. She sees it as her shared responsibility to make a taste for Sichuan’s kitchen easy and pleasant, as well as potentially enlightening. “There is no pressure, all pleasure.” Grand Majestic Sichuan, Alexandra House, store 301, third floor, 18 Chater Road, central. Website; Instructions

Have you dinner at a Hong Kong restaurant directed by a female chef? Tell us about it in the comments below. And follow FT Globetrotter on Instagram in @Ftglobetter