Chef Uwe Opocensky shuts his restaurant, quits Beef & Liberty, to return to hotel trade he quit in 2016 to be ‘more free’

Group executive chef of Hong Kong’s Beef & Liberty, who opened his eponymous restaurant two years ago in Sheung Wan, is taking up undisclosed new role

Surprise announcement comes three years after he left Mandarin Oriental hotel and said he relished the freedom and fun of working for a leaner organisation

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Uwe Opocensky in the kitchen at Beef & Liberty. He joined the Hong Kong burger restaurant chain as group executive chef three years ago after nearly a decade at the Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong hotel, and later opened Restaurant Uwe. The German is returning to the hotel trade.

Published: 11:15am, 15 Aug 2019Updated: 11:27am, 15 Aug 2019

Fans of Hong Kong’s Restaurant Uwe are in for disappointment.

The culinary creative brains behind the restaurant in Sheung Wan, Uwe Opocensky, will close the restaurant this weekend, and leave The Greater China Restaurant Company – operator of the Beef & Liberty burger restaurants – next month.

It was announced on Wednesday to the company that Opocensky, the group executive chef, would leave in mid-September to go back to the hotel industry.

Will Bray, managing director of the restaurant group, said in a statement: “It has been amazing working with Uwe these last three years and we are grateful to him for his contributions to our humble hamburger restaurant, Beef & Liberty, our sister brand Leaves & Liberty, as well as for the creativity and flair he showed to our guests in Restaurant Uwe. We wish him the very best in his new role.”

Uwe Opocensky at the Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong hotel in 2013. He was there for more than nine years. Photo: Paul Yeung

The restaurant group says Beef & Liberty and other brands in the company will continue operations, but that Uwe will close permanently on August 17. However, the website for Uwe, which opened two years ago on Hollywood Road, says the restaurant has already closed.