Tasty lessons
Joseph Tse has been learning his trade for 40 years - and is still learning, writes Bernice Chan
To wish customers well in the Year of the Snake, Hotel Icon's executive Chinese chef Joseph Tse Kam-chung wrote out a special dim sum menu in two columns in which the first character of each dish put together created dui lian, or a couplet.
Such is the detail Tse puts into Above & Beyond, the hotel's signature restaurant on the top floor, presenting Cantonese cuisine infused with Western ingredients.
He has more than 40 years' experience in the restaurant industry, entering the kitchen when he was about 16 years old.
"My family was not well-off at the time, with four brothers and sisters," he says. "We lived in one of those wooden huts in Wan Chai. I didn't finish school, so my father was concerned about me finding a job where I could be fed, have a salary and live in a dormitory."
Tse's friend helped him get a job as one of 12 apprentices, and he walked in "like a blank piece of paper".