Hong Kong’s best private kitchens, frequented by tycoons and pop stars

Advertisement

Experiences

Hong Kong's best private kitchens, frequented by tycoons and popular stars

Many private kitchens are now go-to destinations for the city'southward rich and famous, with the pandemic only adding to these venues' draw past ensuring more than intimate spaces and smaller crowds. Here are four of the best.

For many chefs in Hong Kong – both professional and amateur – private dining outfits are the style to go. (Photos: Instagram)

Hong Kong has long branded itself to tourists as Asia's "food paradise" – even though dishes at its best restaurants tin can behave an abusively high cost tag, and never heed queues that can stretch out the door and down the sidewalk for the better part of a block.

For those willing to pay and sometimes wait, the dense filigree of this urban financial centre offers countless options ranging from dim sum to omakase sushi, all within walking distance. Improve still, the city's corybantic container ports and (before the pandemic) relentlessly busy airdrome ensure that chefs have ready access to fresh ingredients from around the globe.

"Whatsoever import food shop in Hong Kong tin can offer you a pick of almost a hundred kinds of eggs from various countries," one chef friend recently told me, which means he and other chefs can experiment with a wide variety of ingredients in pursuit of the perfect dish.

All the same, the sky-loftier rents have forced many restaurants in the city to charge diners equally stratospheric prices or buy lower-price ingredients, sacrificing quality. Some have decided to move into cramped crannies near the tops of the urban center's towers, or into industrial buildings to cutting down on rent so they can focus on unleashing their full culinary potential and promote the utilise of local ingredients. Many of these venues take become private kitchens for food enthusiasts and are at present get-to destinations for the metropolis's rich and famous.

The pandemic has only added to these venues' draw by raising fears about dining out in crowded hotspots, ensuring the ordinarily smaller and more intimate venues are fully occupied every night – so exist certain to programme ahead and make reservations well in accelerate.

HO LA HO SIK
Good for: People who relish fusion nutrient
Not so good for: A sudden dinner date
FYI: Chef Christopher has a day job, so you lot'll need to book him at least a couple of months ahead

A charming swain with a vivid smile and a talent for whipping up fa cai hao shi (a dish fabricated of oyster, uni and fat choy), Christopher Ho was ever being asked to launder dishes at dinner parties because people thought he couldn't otherwise help out in the kitchen.

But Ho learned to cook, get-go by watching online tutorials from star chefs such as Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay. At present he runs his ain private kitchen, likewise as a few pop-up dining experiences. Afterward just a few years, his skills have advanced by leaps and bounds, cheers to having tasted innovative dishes prepared past top chefs that have sharpened his taste buds.

Ho's recent bill of fare featuring yun nan mo gu (a mushroom and ham consomme) and cong y'all bing (a new course of Shanghai scallion pancake paired with Korean-style beefiness tartare) is the perfect combination of Chinese and French elements, with a hint of Japanese flavour. He has recreated a number of traditional Chinese dishes using new cooking techniques, local produce and imported ingredients, including Japanese uni and caviar.

My favourite dish is his version of luo bo gao, a turnip block my family ofttimes has during the Lunar New Year – merely the usual ingredients are given a new twist in his preparation to bring out the sugariness of the root vegetable that is normally far more muted in the traditional dish.

Ho says he had been spurred to craft his eclectic, China-trotting menu by the pandemic, which has kept most people stranded in the same urban center for well over a twelvemonth. "I've had the opportunity to host everywhere," he said, "From homes to private kitchens to fifty-fifty hotels and private yachts."

To book a dinner, try contacting him on Instagram. Simply do go your asking in early: Balancing a solar day chore and individual dining in the evenings means lately he's needed to be scheduled several months in advance.

TEST KITCHEN
Good for: Innovative dishes
Not and so adept for: Practise not expect fine-dining service
FYI: Follow their Facebook and Instagram for the latest pop-ups

I almost idea that I was at the wrong place the first fourth dimension I arrived at Test Kitchen, a venue that hosts unlike chefs for bimonthly pop-up dinners. Its industrial metal doors look the same as any other warehouse – merely a small shop sign told me I had come up to the correct identify. When I knocked, the doors slowly slid open up to permit the waiting staff to conductor me in.

My attention was immediately grabbed by the open kitchen, where two artists-turned-chefs lavished intense care on a host of colourful dishes.

The chefs, Cam Wong and Jenga Lee, had created a menu in concert with a local gin make, with Wong using gin botanicals in her dishes – including many Chinese flavours such every bit aged tangerine peel and long-jing light-green tea.

The apple-wood cold-smoked Iwate oysters were brought out covered by an aluminium tray that was quickly removed, assuasive a fruity smoke to waft around u.s. that gave everyone sharp elbows every bit nosotros jostled for a bite. The accompanying side dish of apple shiso sorbet made a perfectly refreshing pairing for the flossy oysters.

The venue is also smashing for people similar me who savor sophisticated dishes merely often feel suffocated by the suppressed temper of fine dining. Thankfully, dinner at the Test Kitchen is more similar having a meal at your friend'south place – no one volition mutter if yous express mirth a little likewise loudly.

The odds of anyone enjoying a meal exactly like mine at Test Kitchen are slim, considering the menus are typically one-off offerings, with a different chef and menu each time. Check out its website and social media pages for a peek at what's coming up next.

Shop three, Kwan Yick Building Stage 3, 158A Connaught Road West, Sai Ying Pun, Hong Kong

NO 9 SBI CANTEEN
Good for: Group dinners with friends
Not so good for: Candlelit dates
FYI: The portions are quite big

I'm not entirely sure I'll be able to get to the No 9 SBI Bottle again. The restaurant is one of the nigh sought-later on Chinese private kitchens in town and even I don't quite know how to make a proper booking. I managed to talk my way in with a friend.

Information technology is owned by Lawrence Yu, a prominent Hong Kong businessman, and if you accept a connection to someone in the know, you'll be able to make a reservation. It is booked entirely by word of mouth.
Chef Tak Chow, who runs the canteen's kitchen, served equally the apprentice of Li "Broken Teeth" Cheng, ane of whose ancestors was the household chef for the prominent Qing dynasty official Gong Taai Si. Cheng was renowned for his role as one of the most of import figures in the development of Cantonese cuisine as we know information technology today.

Existence Cantonese myself, I must say that chef Tak'southward dishes, such as fried pork stomach, steamed rice in lotus leaf and stuffed crab vanquish, were the about delicate I'd always tasted – apart, of course, from the ones my grandmother cooked.

Cantonese cuisine is a truly enervating endeavour that can become wrong very desperately, very quickly. It requires sophisticated techniques cultivated over years of training and the preparation of a unmarried dish can take weeks.

If you manage to score a reservation hither, my recommendation is the translucent wintertime-melon soup, served in a hollowed-out winter melon. It will bowl y'all over with a surfeit of flavours thanks to the exquisite crabmeat, stale seafood and (my ain favourite addition) a dark-blooming blossom – giving information technology a special olfactory property.

No 9 SBI Canteen is 1 of the superlative dining spots for many of Hong Kong'south tycoons and pop stars. I am sure at least a few readers will be able to snag a tabular array – but only if they practice so well in advance.

four/F & 5/F, 7-eleven Mercer Street, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong

ANDO
Good for: A high-end fine-dining feel
Not so good for: Vegetarians and people with seafood or dairy allergies
FYI: Online booking is available

The evening dining ban during the pandemic forced Ando out of its own premises and into private dining – sort of like a ring of exiled cooks who soon found themselves turning diners' homes into makeshift restaurants.

"It is not the aforementioned considering at the eating house, every centimetre is customised [in service of] the dishes," said Agustin Balbi, Ando's Argentine-built-in, Japanese-trained chef. "When we go to someone's business firm, we need to adapt."

He is, of course, being modest – Balbi is uncommonly adaptive. Only where others bewail Hong Kong'southward shortcomings – the cramped quarters, the loftier rents – he sees information technology as a special place for chefs.

"In Hong Kong, eating out is virtually like the national sport," said Balbi, who has prepared meals at loyal customers' homes on Hong Kong'southward virtually exclusive estates. He points out that the city is full to bursting with affluent bankers and other professionals who consume out – or at present, in – virtually every day.

Most chiefly, they are willing to fork over more than almost just to tuck into a slap-up meal. And so Balbi'due south team took everything from loftier-quality tableware to the eating place's playlist of ambient music into people'southward homes to recreate the total Ando feel.

Balbi elegantly fuses Spanish and Japanese elements into an inviting, almost comforting blend in dishes such every bit Que Raro Este Flan (a chawanmushi, or Japanese savoury egg custard) and Viene Antonia (a Japanese flan with sea-table salt ice cream). His signature dish – a caldoso rice named Sin Lola ("Without Lola") in remembrance of his late grandmother – warmed me to my middle.

Now that many restaurants in Hong Kong have reopened, you can either endeavour Agustin'due south caldoso rice at his bustling restaurant or, on the days that it is closed, book him for ane of your individual parties – provided he can squeeze y'all in. In Hong Kong, long lines are starting to reappear outside top restaurants such as Ando. It'due south just part of the price you lot pay here for amazing food.

1/F, Somptueux Primal, 52 Wellington Street, Central, Hong Kong

By Nicolle Liu © 2022 The Financial Times

Source: Fiscal Times/ds

Contempo Searches

Trending Topics

guajardoanchoughboad1982.blogspot.com

Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/experiences/hong-kong-private-dining-kitchens-chefs-278736

Share this post