Chef Ringo Chan on Hongkongers’ tastes for desserts that aren’t too sweet, and how the world is catching on
- Ringo Chan had an early interest in photography, later turning his creative flair to cakes and confections
- As executive pastry chef at the Four Seasons Hotel Hong Kong, he is responsible for the annual Christmas lobby display
Were you interested in cooking as a child? “Actually I enjoyed photography in high school. I was self-taught. I saved up to buy my first camera, but my father chastised me for spending a lot of money. I only thought of photography as a hobby. After I graduated from secondary school my father asked me what I was going to do and I didn’t know, so he suggested getting me a job in a bank. I said, ‘I hate counting money!’”
When did you start dabbling in pastry? “After Form Five, during the summer holidays I worked at Saint Honore Cake Shop for two months and quite enjoyed it but didn’t think much of it. I was influenced by my older brother, who was a chef at Kowloon Shangri-La. But I didn’t want to work in the kitchen because I didn’t want to handle meat.”
What did you do afterwards? “I didn’t do well in school and had to repeat Form Five, but I lost interest in studying so I had to find a job. Because I like to take pictures I started working at a shop in Yau Ma Tei that developed and printed photos in one hour.
“I mixed chemicals and developed film. Then I learned how to develop pictures. We didn’t have a monitor to look at the pictures so I had to look at the negative and figure out the colour saturation. It trained my eye to look at things carefully. I even developed wedding photos.”
How did you get into pastry? “In 1989, I followed my brother into the hotel industry. I went to The Regent Hong Kong [now the closed InterContinental Hong Kong], in the pastry department, where I apprenticed for two years. I did lots of washing up, and every four months we rotated to different sections: cake, chocolate, bread and dessert. It was fun.
“I got to learn English – in school we didn’t learn words like ‘pistachio’ and ‘apricot’. I also got the chef to teach me words off the menu written on a blackboard in the kitchen.”