Fresh Meat
Lynn Fung meets Hong Kong’s newest culinary sensations.
Sure, Ducasse, Nobu and Robuchon have all made their mark in Hong Kong, but that’s yesterday’s news. Meet the next generation of chefs with the skill, technique and imagination to shape the new face of our dining scene.
Ashton Hall
Chef at Felix, The Peninsula
Under Ashton Hall’s direction, the menu at The Peninsula’s loftiest restaurant has become more contemporary, taking cues from Hall’s own two favorite cuisines: “Japanese for its freshness and purity of flavors, and food from the American South—Louisiana, Georgia, Florida—for a taste of home.” After foraging for new flavors in Hong Kong, the chef at Felix has discovered the delights of local ingredients to add to his repertoire, particularly fresh seafood like razor clams, scallops and crabs. Ever the student, Hall continues his education by visiting the restaurants of Jordan and sampling different styles of cooking, such as hotpot and charcoal grilling.
Felix, 28/F, The Peninsula, Salisbury Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, 2315-3188
Taran Chadha
Chef de cuisine at Watermark
Hong Kong born-and-raised Taran Chadha realized halfway through his mathematics degree that in spite of his traditional Indian family’s expectations, he would rather spend his life cooking beans than counting them. “I started at the bottom,” he says, “washing dishes at La Bodega for a year.” Now the chef de cuisine at Watermark, Chadha sees himself as mainly self-taught. Believing that most chefs skip steps when creating dishes in order to be more efficient, Chadha taught himself the foundations of classical cuisine by immersing himself in cookbooks: “The French Laundry Cookbook was my bible for years,” he says. With the oncoming recession, Chadha believes that food will go back to basics and localized Chinese and Southeast Asian cuisine will take center stage. He’s already a fan; Chadha can be found chowing down on chili crab at Lumiere or beef brisket noodles at one of the many dai pai dongs in Central.
Watermark, Pier Number 7, Central, 2167-7251
Que Vinh Dang
Executive chef at Duke’s Burger