How Hong Kong-born chef Kwanghi Chan found found cooking, and fame, in Ireland
- The chef and owner of Bowls by Kwanghi Chan, in Dublin, on overcoming a difficult childhood
- Cooking quickly became a way for Chan to block out what had happened with his parents
You were born in Hong Kong. What do you remember about the place? “I don’t remember much except going to school in Tsuen Wan. When I was three years old, my parents and I moved to Antwerp, Belgium, where my mother’s sister had a Chinese restaurant. I went to school there and learned how to speak Flemish. But then my parents split up and I went back to Hong Kong with my dad.
“In 1989, when I was eight years old, I went to live with his younger brother in Buncrana, Donegal, in Ireland. We were the only Chinese in the farmers’ town. My uncle opened a European-Chinese restaurant that had good chefs. They made things like Peking duck, char siu and spare ribs, fake bird’s nest out of shredded deep-fried potatoes, and kung pao chicken.”
Is that what led you to become a chef? “I started working at the restaurant when I was eight, washing dishes and picking the meat out of chicken wings for fried rice. I learned how to use a wok and fry rice with it. By the time I was 13, I was running the restaurant when my uncle took a few days off. I was able to cook all the dishes. During lunchtime at school, I’d go to the restaurant to make sure the chicken had been defrosted and do a couple of jobs, then go back to school and come back again at 4pm.
“After I did my university matriculation exam, I had to choose between art, which I was good at, or culinary school, which was French cuisine. The school was three hours from where we lived. I left my uncle’s place in 2005. I loved culinary school. It was a three-year programme. At the start, it was hard because everything was totally different, but I was a fast learner.
“After the first year, I was selected for the college culinary team. I went to competitions around the country and used to get medals all the time. In the last year, I got selected for the national Irish team. I was on the team for five years, competing in three Culinary Olympics.”
Did you like competing? “I wasn’t very sociable back then, I focused on work. I could only express my anger through my cooking, that was my outlet. Every hour I had, I read cookbooks. It was a way for me to block out what happened in my life with my parents.”