Caviar with banana bread, durian ice cream or in mooncakes, anyone? Chefs in Hong Kong try out new and unusual pairings
- Chef Leonard Cheung’s banana bread with a spoonful of caviar is going down a treat with diners at Cultivate, with ‘only about one in 10’ not liking it, he says
- Chef Barry Quek tried nine different types of caviar for his durian ice cream before settling on a variety with just the right nutty notes and salinity
At new Hong Kong restaurant Cultivate, chef-owner Leonard Cheung presents some creative pairings including a bite-sized starter of celtuce with eel, a San Lorenzo melon soup with anise jelly, and a sweet-savoury dessert featuring sunchokes with Parmigiano and shavings of truffle. But one dish stands out from the others: banana bread with a carefully placed spoonful of caviar.
The chef came up with the dish at a New Year’s Eve dinner he cooked in South Carolina in the US in 2015.
“The guests ordered almost 2kg of caviar, around six or seven of those big tins,” Cheung recalls. “But by 11pm they were trashed and they left soon after the countdown. They left all this caviar behind and we didn’t want to waste it.”
His team scoured the kitchen looking for blinis, potatoes or bread – all commonly served with caviar – but couldn’t find any. In the pastry section, however, they found some banana bread.
“I was wondering how it was going to taste, but when I ate it, I was like, ‘Wow this works.’ The banana bread is slightly sweet, with a funky flavour from the banana that goes well with caviar.”