WOK STAR

IF YAN CAN, ANYONE CAN. Cook that is. But not everyone can rustle up the recipe for success that has made Martin Yan perhaps the most celebrated Chinese chef in the world. The 50-year-old Guangdong-born Chinese-American has been milking the culinary cash cow for two decades as a television star and best-selling author. With his chirpy voice and no-nonsense style, people either love or hate him, yet with one simple maxim Yan has led millions away from the takeaway joint and back to their kitchens.

It's all part of the food revolution which has superstar cooks raking in the dough the world over. Japan goes crazy over its Iron Chefs, the United States boils over with the likes of Bobby Flay, Ming Tsai, Wolfgang Puck and Jean-Georges Vongerichten, while Britons worship wok-wizard Ken Hom and the mockney cockney 'Naked Chef', aka Jamie Oliver. But while the cliche that 'food is the new rock'n'roll' may be a truism in most of the developed world, there is little sign that Hong Kong chefs have come out of the kitchen. Many people here still view cooking as a trade rather than a profession or creative art form.

'There are no famous chefs in Hong Kong,' says restaurateur and food writer Lau Kin-wai. 'It's a problem with restaurants here that you never know who the chef is.'

Florian Trento, executive chef of The Peninsula hotel and president of the 140-member Hong Kong Chefs Association, agrees. Hotels have led the international culinary scene in Hong Kong and 'they tend to promote the entire product rather than a person', he says.

When asked to name a home-grown celebrity chef, both Lau and Trento come up with Yeung Koon-yat, the publicity-astute 'abalone king'. 'He's the one holding the torch for Hong Kong cuisine, even though he's not really a chef,' says Trento. 'He has done many things for chefs in Hong Kong.'

Trento says Yeung's path to fame was made possible because he owns the Forum Restaurant in Causeway Bay where he cooks. 'Restaurateurs here are more famous than their chefs,' says Trento, 'like Michelle Garnaut at M At The Fringe.' Lau, who runs Yellow Door Kitchen in Central, says: 'It's the owners who are famous. If you make a chef famous he will leave. Yeung doesn't have to worry about that.'