Chefs brave enough to follow their dreams and start up their own restaurants need to convince sceptical investors and diners that they have the intelligence and skills to carry it off.
Before former chef Anthony Bourdain become a television personality, he wrote about 'owner's syndrome' in his tell-all book, Kitchen Confidential.
'To want to own a restaurant can be a strange and terrible affliction,' Bourdain writes, adding the odds of success in the business are about one in five.
But those who beat the odds did so with 'a simple, straightforward concept: a bar with decent food, or a simple country Italian restaurant or a bistro loved for its lack of pretension.'
We can all name a restaurant in Hong Kong that fits the bill: the little corner kitchen you go to a couple times a week; that weekend spot where your friends meet for a chat and a bite.
And for five Hong Kong-based chefs who've previously worked for some of the biggest names in the world, that's exactly what they have been hoping to achieve.
Some of them might be familiar to you: Yardbird in Sheung Wan is the hottest table in town, its Japanese izakaya/yakitori blend garnering endless praise for former Zuma chef Matt Abergel; Madam Sixty Ate on Wan Chai's burgeoning Johnston Road allows chef Chris Woodyard (previously of Hong Kong's W Hotel) to indulge in modern European cuisine; and Jeremy Biasiol's decade-long stint at Alain Ducasse's restaurants has practically given him a licence to serve contemporary French dishes at The Mirror.