Vegan chefs, plant-based food entrepreneur in Hong Kong look to the future of healthy eating after rebounding from pandemic closures
- Hong Kong chefs Tina Barrat and Peggy Chan, and plant-based food entrepreneur David Yeung, have been instrumental in the vegan dining scene’s growth in the city
- They talk about closing outlets as a result of the pandemic and how it made them change their focus, and share their plans and hopes for the future
Hong Kong chef Tina Barrat has pivoted to doing pop-ups, and more, after vegan restaurant Ma … and the Seeds of Life, in Central, closed suddenly at the end of March 2023.
The owners wrote in an Instagram post that the-fine dining restaurant was closed “due to a change in concept”.
“In January and February business was getting better, but then people realised they could go on holiday,” Barrat says, adding that other vegan and vegetarian restaurants had closed too.
The coronavirus pandemic helped expose how meat-processing plants operate and motivated many consumers to embrace plant-based diets. Yet it wasn’t enough to keep vegan businesses going, she says, even though more people adopted a flexitarian diet and ate more plant-based food.
She later became vegan and, through a series of pop-ups, showed that a plant-based diet could be delicious, serving dishes such as cauliflower steaks and beet soups.