Mouthing Off | Goodbye Gordon Ramsay, Jamie Oliver: is Hong Kong finally falling out of love with celebrity chefs?
- Every Hong Kong restaurant is struggling now but the shutting of outlets by Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver suggest the city is losing interest in star foreign chefs
- Perhaps diners are finally beyond falling for the hype of a famous name and fancy designer decor
Four weeks ago, all the Gordon Ramsay restaurants in Hong Kong – Maze Grill, London House and Bread Street Kitchen – quietly and suddenly shut their doors. A month earlier, Jamie Oliver’s outlets in Hong Kong and Taipei shut.
But the culinary exodus makes me wonder: is the era of celebrity chefs over?
Every food and dining enterprise in Hong Kong is having a hard time now, but the so-called celebrity chef restaurants seem more susceptible than most to financial pressure. This might have something to do with the fact that these franchises are all about finance. All restaurants want to make money, but Ramsay didn’t open in Hong Kong to come here and cook. He brought his brands over because we’re a lucrative market.
Cooking is meant to be a bespoke creative act. But a chef can only physically prepare so many meals at one time. Beyond that, you need an assembly line working from set recipes. That’s not a criticism – most restaurants work this way. But customers assume that famous chefs, if they don’t do most of the cooking at their restaurants, will at least inspect each plate to ensure it meets his or her standards.
