IF a menu reflects a chef's personality, his signature dish is his handshake.
With so many visiting chefs adding muscle and innovation to the dining scene, the diner is constantly faced with the limitations of being mortal - like having one stomach.
What's for dinner and who's cooking is a form of local showmanship. With the sheer number of monthly promotions, where to dine becomes an executive decision, where are your calories, money and time best spent? Since chefs know their menu best, we asked three of the current visiting chefs for their signature dish.
Michael and Ines Chiarello could not bring Tra Vigne, their Italian villa-style restaurant with terrace dining in California's Napa Valley, to Hongkong. Instead, they sent one tonne of ingredients to the Peninsula Hotel.
What they grow and produce - cured olives, prosciutto, sun-dried cherries and tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, salami and Meyer lemons, a variety of citrus that tastes like a sassy, sour orange - is turned into earthy dishes served family-style.
''California food prepared with the heart, hands and eyes of an Italian,'' is how the couple describe their style of cooking.
