Shangri-La chefs share top Chinese recipes and drinks pairings in cookbook
Some of the dishes served at the Shang Palace and Summer Palace, the hotel group’s iconic Cantonese restaurants, may prove too difficult for home cooks, but there are easier recipes too
At first glance, this cookbook can be maddeningly frustrating because there’s a lot of information missing. I couldn’t find the year it was published on the copyright page (an online search revealed that it came out in 2006), or any information on which Shangri-La hotels participated in the production of the book. And although the names of the chefs who contributed recipes are listed, it doesn’t give any biographical details about them, nor does it tell us at which branch they worked. Freelance writer and long-time Hong Kong resident Robin Lynam is given credit for writing the introduction, but who penned the words to the following chapters?
The book tells us, “Usually the first property will be in the heart of the city and have a Shang Palace, while the second will be away from the city centre and be designated a Summer Palace [...] Every rule has its exceptions however.
In Hong Kong, the city’s centre can only be said to be in the middle of the harbour, the equally important Central and Tsimshatsui districts lying to either side of it, but even Hong Kong could not have more than one Shang Palace, so when the Island Shangri-La opened in 1991 a Summer Palace became one of its foremost attractions.”