Mr Kwok, 45, grew up in Hong Kong until, at 17, his parents sent him to finish his schooling in London. Studies in Los Angeles Loyola Marymount University followed, where he read business administration, French and philosophy.

'Yes, it was diverse - the shape of things to come,' he says. He had always been fascinated by French. 'I thought it was a cute thing to delve into.'

A year studying restaurant management was the beginning of his love affair with wine. A skilled cook, he eked out his student budget catering for friends and relatives.

Now immersed in the culinary arts, the next stop on his food and wine odyssey was a year at the Cordon Bleu cookery school in Paris, followed by another year in France working at Laurent, a Michelin two-star restaurant.

A stint in Hong Kong with a wine importer followed, but he was in his late 20s and yet to find his niche. He harboured the nagging feeling that he should pursue something specific and took a course in hotel management while he considered his options.

He came back to Hong Kong again in 1988 to become restaurant manager of the then new Peak branch of Jimmy's Kitchen, but this came to an abrupt end with the June 4 massacre in Beijing. He was so upset he decided to leave Asia. 'I thought that's the end, it was so depressing,' he says.

Returning to Paris to study German and Portuguese, he admits he had become a professional student but says he 'always liked to learn things in a proper way.' He's glad he persevered with the core areas of study with experts in each field.

'This is something invaluable. And it is your golden rule, because if you learn from people you respect, you will do whatever it takes to make other people respect you in the same way.'

He financed his studies with savings and his father's generosity. Finding languages tough, he switched to a masters degree in wine studies in Bordeaux. Not realising that this took in geology, law, geography and organic chemistry, this also proved a tough year.

He then decided on opening a restaurant in Hong Kong, but felt uncomfortable.

'People regarded me as a different person by now because they think it's chic to be a graduate of a French university. They now wanted to do business with me and I found them very fake.'

He took the plunge. With his father financing his share and 'two very sincere silent partners, one my cousin and the other a close friend,' he opened W's Entrecote in Times Square, now relocated in nearby Express Bay Holiday Inn.

In the beginning, there were long lines because people could afford it, he says. Then disaster struck with the 1997 financial crisis, followed by mad cow disease, a huge problem for a steakhouse. But their strong local clientele in Causeway Bay stuck with them. 'W's is a family restaurant, not just a gimmick.'

With one successful branch, Mr Kwok caught the expansion bug.

Eighteen months after opening W's Entrecote in 1995, he invested the proceeds plus money from family and the bank in a second eatery, Terrace 13 in Tsim Sha Tsui East, but it never flew. 'It was too big, we served Vietnamese food too cheap.'

Not willing to give up, he tried again. 'I thought maybe I could bet again, so I started another restaurant.' This was W's Alsace, selling wines with a micro-brewery in Festival Walk.

He signed the lease in early 1997, but renovations and operations were delayed by 18 months. He dug in deeper. 'Well, other partners said they would commit but never did, so I took up the shares as well. It kept losing, losing. It opened for two and a half years and I doubled my loss,' he says wryly.

Now his diversified training paid off. He bailed himself out by lecturing on wines, writing articles and cookbooks, selling wines and organising wine dinners.

Since then, he has restricted expansion to a partnership in a small wine bar called Diva Red next door to W's.

With one restaurant hit and two misses, Mr Kwok has learnt his lesson: timing is everything. 'I wish I had started my career in the 1960s, there were no disasters - it was hard to fail then.'

As for the future, he feels optimistic. 'I try not to be too ambitious, but I know that one day my restaurant, which has always been enjoyed, could expand in China or Asia, and I would like to sell a franchise some day. But I'm sticking to one business concept now.'

Or so he says. But now that he's recently become a respected wine critic doing his own highly regarded wine ratings, he may yet eat those words.