How Belon’s British chef Daniel Calvert turned an empty restaurant into one of Asia’s best
- When British chef Daniel Calvert was appointed head chef of Belon in Hong Kong in 2017, it was not doing well. This year, it was voted the fourth best in Asia
- As he prepares to move on, Calvert shares his journey, from watching Jamie Oliver on TV to achieving every goal he set for himself so far
What were you like as a child? “I was very quiet. I have an older brother and sister and a younger sister. I had a normal upbringing, nothing glamorous. I grew up on a housing estate in Surrey [in southeast England], which was not very exciting. The only thing that comes out of Surrey is Harry Potter, so I left home at 16 and moved to London.”
What was it like moving to London at such a young age? “Hard. I didn’t think about it at the time. But I knew if I wanted to cook that’s what I had to do. I had to leave home because I wanted to work in the best restaurants in the world.”
When did you know you wanted to be a chef? “I think I was around 13, but I don’t know why – my father and mother don’t care about food and wine at all.”
Where did you learn how to cook? “At the time, Jamie Oliver was popular on TV and cooking shows were really popular, and I just started watching those. My parents are divorced, and my mum worked two jobs so we had to cook for ourselves. I guess that’s where it started.
“The first things I cooked were terrible. I remember being hard on myself and getting so upset about it. I recall making pasta at a very young age, and I used to cook every Sunday, like a roast. I would use Oliver’s cookbooks a lot because his food is quite approachable.