Singaporean chef Barry Quek opens Whey in Hong Kong, serving food inspired by home, after boning up on history of Lion City cuisine
- Quek has spent his career until now cooking French and other European dishes. For the first time the Singaporean will serve food inspired by dishes from home
- He has never cooked Singaporean food for guests before, and needed to read up on its roots and learn some new techniques
Singaporean chef Barry Quek may not have been able to go home this past year, but missing the flavours from the Lion City has inspired his new Hong Kong restaurant, Whey.
In the same building on Wellington Street, Central, as VEA and Miss Lee, Whey is new culinary territory for Quek, and diners are in for an intriguing journey.
In April 2020 he closed Beet, a European-style restaurant that featured chicken from Hong Kong’s New Territories with seasonal vegetables, Hokkaido scallops with citrus, and his famous sourdough bread with kefir (fermented milk) butter.
Then Quek threw himself into serving hawker-style food at Return of Lemak in BaseHall in the basement of Jardine House, Central, making dishes such as nonya laksa, nasi lemak and beef rendang.
Cooking Singaporean dishes was completely new for Quek, whose previous culinary experiences before coming to Hong Kong were at Michelin-starred French restaurants such as Joel Robuchon and Les Amis.