Life.Culture.Discovery.

Changing America’s idea of Chinese food: ‘it’s not all lo mein and General Tso’s chicken, chef Lucas Sin says

The Hong Kong-raised, Yale-educated chef’s ‘fast-casual’ chain of northern Chinese restaurants in New York and Connecticut is challenging long-held perceptions

Sin opened his first pop-up restaurant in an abandoned Hong Kong factory when he just 16. He and the Junzi team have been helping feed health care workers

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Hong Kong chef Lucas Sin at Junzi, in New York. Photo: courtesy of Junzi

Published: 7:45pm, 27 Jun 2020Updated: 4:00pm, 1 Jun 2022

When did your food journey begin? “I cooked a lot at home when I was a kid. When I was 16, I opened a pop-up restaurant in an abandoned newspaper factory in Chai Wan. A friend of a friend had a space and he was kind enough to lease it to me for free. It had a wine cellar and a semi-professional kitchen. It came about because my dad and I were thinking of what to do for my last summer in Hong Kong before I went to college [in the United States] and the idea of a pop-up restaurant came up. I had no professional experience but I told myself, ‘Why not?’”

“I researched, put together menus and taught my friends how to cook. It was fun. My guests were my teachers, friends, parents’ friends and people we didn’t know. All proceeds went to Christina Noble Children’s Foundation, an NGO that my school – the Chinese International School – worked with. My signature dish was pork belly claypot rice with taro and Chinese sausage.”

Now that you’re based in the United States, what do you miss about Hong Kong? “I love the Hong Kong food scene. Everybody knew each other. The cooks from different restaurants would go out to get beers after service and eat together.”

What did you learn from working at TBLS with chef Que Vinh Dang? “The best way to learn something is to figure out who does it best and whether that person would be willing to teach you. TBLS [a now-closed restaurant on Hollywood Road in Hong Kong] was my favourite restaurant, so I asked chef Que if there were any job openings. At TBLS the menu was creative and it changed all the time.

“Working there was challenging because the kitchen was small but we still managed to serve delicious food. Que [who now has Nhau restaurant, in Central] is one of the most generous chefs I’ve ever cooked for because he taught me everything. I learned to make pastry, cook fish and wash dishes properly. This was my first real kitchen job. I worked there for only about two months but I learned a lot.”