Martin Yan strides across his newest restaurant with a singular focus: lychees! Diners wave him down and the friendly chef greets them with a handshake and a few words, but he doesn't let these fans deter him from his objective. He marches out into the impressive backyard orchard and inspects his lychee trees with a critical eye, chatting and gesturing vigorously with three men.
They are bargaining for a price to harvest the fruit for the upcoming lychee season. True to his television personality, Yan is a man in constant motion.
A native of Guangzhou and adopted son of San Francisco, he is most famous for his 30-plus years as America's exuberant television chef on the programme, Yan Can Cook, as well as being a successful restaurateur (he has two restaurants, Yan Can, in California) and author.
His latest project is the Chef Martin Yan's Culinary Arts Centre (CAC) in Shenzhen. The aim is to bring together Chinese culture and cuisine for both professional chefs and casual cooks. The CAC is housed in a magnificent replica of a French chateau at the foot of the international bar street of Shenzhen's Window of the World.
'I wanted to create a place for chefs to master different techniques and a gathering place for leisure cooks, tourists and enthusiasts,' Yan says. He heard about the place a year ago through China Travel Service (CTS), which helps him with his travelling cooking show and owns the theme park.
'It was important for the school to be in China to teach Chinese cooking. During my travels, I would look in places like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. This building [which previously housed a French restaurant] had been empty for 12 years, but what potential! I liked how the subway station was at the front door step and from Hong Kong anyone could take the train all the way,' he says.