Chefs out to delight the senses

Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts has launched a special event which combines two of Hong Kong's chief loves - fashion and food.

The Hong Kong leg of the touring festival, A Feast for the Senses, runs from tomorrow until Friday at the Island Shangri-La, featuring six of the hotel chain's top chefs as well as fashion shows from Dior and business lunches presided over by several distinguished speakers.

The event will move to Taipei next month and to Singapore in July.

The event aimed to cater to the sophisticated tastes of the region's high-end consumers, said Louise Lao Mei Chi, director of food and beverage and business development for Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts. 'We decided to bring together everything good about living in Asia: fine food, fine wine, cutting-edge fashion as well as intellectual vigour,' Ms Lao said.

The four chefs taking part in the Hong Kong event - Australian Michael McCalman, Frenchman Eric Mommejac, Japanese Takayuki Oshima and renowned Taiwanese chef Yi Chi Shui - have collaborated on a number of combined menus, and will each take over one of the establishment's fine dining restaurants.

'Normally when a hotel gets a guest chef they only use one restaurant,' said Mr McCalman, executive chef of the Shangri-La Tanjung Aru Resort in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia. 'I haven't seen anything done like this for a long time, particularly on this scale.'