25+ restaurants: One Harbour Road at Grand Hyatt Hong Kong
Innovation lies at the heart of a successful kitchen, the Grand Hyatt's long-serving Chinese chef tells Janice Leung Hayes
"When I first started working in a kitchen, I didn't want to tell people. Cooking wasn't a glamorous job back then - they called us kitchen brutes," says the Grand Hyatt's executive Chinese chef Li Shu-tim, or chef Tim as he's known.
"Nowadays, the perception of chefs has improved. Top chefs have higher profiles [which] helps to attract young talent," he says.
Li believes that his young staff members are just as willing to work hard to reach the top as his generation of chefs were. He finds them keen to learn and willing to meet his exacting requirements - which is something he relies on to keep the restaurant running like a well-oiled machine.
Li has been with the team at One Harbour Road since the restaurant, and the hotel in which it is housed, opened 25 years ago. "Back then, there weren't many high-end restaurants, so there were lots of opportunities for us to break new ground," he says. The restaurant was designed to look like a 1930s-era Chinese mansion, complete with gardens and colonial-style balconies. "The plates are mismatched on purpose because who has completely identical plates at home?" Li says.
The cuisine is Cantonese with a homestyle slant. Li has seen many changes to the menu in his years at the restaurant, such as the removal of cold pig's trotters and reducing the amount of oil in cooking. He cites food safety standards, scientific research and customer taste as the main causes for change.
"My generation of chefs learned a style of Cantonese cooking that has roots in Panyu and Shunde," says Li. And while he continues that legacy he won't stop innovating. "We add seasonal specialities every month and review the main menu two or three times a year," he says. Of his dish of baked abalone and sea cucumber baked with a puff pastry top, Li says, "It's not traditional because of the puff pastry, but the reason I put it there is to keep the abalone and sea cucumber as close to 100 degrees Celsius as possible."
