https://www.scmp.com/rss/11754/feed A former senior commissioning editor at the South China Morning Post and restaurant critic for the Wall Street Journal Asia, Victoria writes about food, wine, and whisky for the BBC, Travel + Leisure, Nat Geo, Vogue India and more. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Victoria Burrows Victoria Burrows Partway through our meal at Surfers, a Chinese restaurant in Sweden’s capital of Stockholm, Ludvig Saaf bursts into song. It is a Mongolian drinking song about fermented mare’s milk, but few in the dining room can understand the Mandarin lyrics. We join in, though, answering each rousing “Hey!” with a rowdy one of our own. At the end, we shout “ganbei” – a Chinese term meaning “cheers” – and down our thimble-sized glasses of baijiu, a Chinese spirit. Saaf, tall and blond with a pierced lower... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/food-drink/article/3347152/trailblazing-chinese-restaurant-sweden-showing-what-culture-really-all-about?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/food-drink/article/3347152/trailblazing-chinese-restaurant-sweden-showing-what-culture-really-all-about?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 22 Mar 2026 04:45:11 +0000 Victoria Burrows Victoria Burrows Hospitality is a notoriously stressful profession, and for chefs and restaurant managers operating at the highest levels of excellence, the pressure to perform perfectly can be intense. For couples who work together in a restaurant, they must do this while also negotiating the everyday bothers of life and endeavouring to keep the spark of romance alive. Despite the challenges, the gastronomic world has numerous dedicated duos running their own restaurants who, over the years, often develop... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/food-drink/article/3343173/atomix-ta-vie-how-couples-restaurants-turn-kitchen-pressure-partnerships?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/food-drink/article/3343173/atomix-ta-vie-how-couples-restaurants-turn-kitchen-pressure-partnerships?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 14 Feb 2026 07:15:11 +0000 Victoria Burrows Victoria Burrows Hong Kong-born chef Edward Lee opened his restaurant Udtryk (pronounced “oot-trehk”) in Copenhagen, Denmark, on May 7. Just 41 days later, the restaurant was awarded a Michelin star – one of the quickest on record. Lee says winning the star was a huge surprise. “It was an absolute shock to the system on the night,” says the 38-year-old chef. “It’s absolutely wonderful. To go from zero to one star so quickly without a big-name chef or anything, that’s something to be proud of.” Lee may not yet be... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/food-drink/article/3333181/one-fastest-michelin-stars-ever-hong-kong-born-chefs-unique-restaurant-udtryk?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/food-drink/article/3333181/one-fastest-michelin-stars-ever-hong-kong-born-chefs-unique-restaurant-udtryk?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 21 Nov 2025 04:15:08 +0000 Victoria Burrows Victoria Burrows In a new YouTube series for home cooks, chef Andrew Wong – owner of A.Wong in London, the first Chinese restaurant outside Asia to earn two Michelin stars – is not afraid of flouting convention. The first episode in the series, titled “Secrets of the Chinese Kitchen with Andrew Wong”, covers how to make special fried rice. But instead of using last night’s leftover rice, as is the norm, he cooks a fresh batch in a rice cooker, to which he adds chicken powder and oil. While cutting the spring... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/food-drink/article/3327465/top-chinese-chefs-youtube-cooking-series-stirs-buzz-and-bickering?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/food-drink/article/3327465/top-chinese-chefs-youtube-cooking-series-stirs-buzz-and-bickering?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 04 Oct 2025 23:15:08 +0000 Victoria Burrows Victoria Burrows As I look out the aeroplane window on our descent into Yerevan, Armenia’s ancient capital, and see the snowy cone of Mount Ararat rising up out of ripples of cocoa- and rust-coloured earth, the ghosts of the past take shape, the mountain a solid reminder of a genocide Turkey still contests doesn’t qualify for the term: the killing of what many believe to be at least 1 million ethnic Armenians living within the Ottoman Empire in 1915-16. The Biblical resting place of Noah’s Ark after the Great... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/travel/article/3327610/mount-ararats-shadow-armenia-blends-old-rituals-new-ambition?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/travel/article/3327610/mount-ararats-shadow-armenia-blends-old-rituals-new-ambition?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 02 Oct 2025 10:15:09 +0000 Victoria Burrows Victoria Burrows Guests sitting down for dinner at The Residence at the Grand Hyatt Hong Kong will find that their tabletop has been turned into a visual spectacle. A virtual story is projected onto the table, with optical techniques and length distortions creating the illusion of depth and a 3D effect. The interactive, immersive dining experience, called The Magic Table, is the global premiere of a new show by two stars of America’s Got Talent, Thommy Ten and Amélie van Tass, who perform as The Clairvoyants.... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/100-top-tables/article/3326848/beyond-plate-hong-kongs-top-hotel-tables-offer-experiential-dining-plenty-drama?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/100-top-tables/article/3326848/beyond-plate-hong-kongs-top-hotel-tables-offer-experiential-dining-plenty-drama?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 25 Sep 2025 22:15:08 +0000 Victoria Burrows Victoria Burrows Macanese food is one of the world’s first true fusion cuisines, blending Portuguese culinary tradition with Chinese, Southeast Asian and African influences. The cuisine reflects the history of the city, but also something of the spirit of present-day Macau as a place that diverse cultures call home and which is visited by tourists from all over the world. Macau was settled from at least the Han dynasty (202BC–AD9, AD25–220), and grew from a small fishing village in the 13th century to an... https://www.scmp.com/specialist-publications/special-reports/topics/100-top-tables-cities-gastronomy/article/3326511/evolution-macanese-cuisine-portuguese-roots-global-flavours?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/specialist-publications/special-reports/topics/100-top-tables-cities-gastronomy/article/3326511/evolution-macanese-cuisine-portuguese-roots-global-flavours?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 23 Sep 2025 10:15:08 +0000 Victoria Burrows Victoria Burrows Soneva Fushi, a luxury resort in the Baa Atoll Unesco Biosphere Reserve in the Maldives, has won the Art of Hospitality Award in the World’s 50 Best Hotels 2025 ranking. The island resort brings the award to Asia for the first time – Gleneagles in Scotland won the inaugural title in 2023, followed by Royal Mansour in Marrakech, Morocco, in 2024. For the award, members of the World’s 50 Best Hotels voting academy – made up of more than 800 anonymous hoteliers, travel journalists, hotel educators,... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3325529/worlds-50-best-hotels-2025-awards-maldives-soneva-fushi-best-hospitality-award?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3325529/worlds-50-best-hotels-2025-awards-maldives-soneva-fushi-best-hospitality-award?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 16 Sep 2025 05:01:07 +0000 Victoria Burrows Victoria Burrows Korean-American chef Edward Lee is a difficult man to pin down. His recent work schedule sees him repeatedly travel to South Korea and back home again to the US to oversee his five restaurants and non-profit initiatives. He recently guest-cooked at the Kentucky Derby, the annual horse race that 25 years ago helped spark his love for all things American South and diverted his life from New York to Louisville, in the US state of Kentucky. He also fit in a visit to Hong Kong, where he cooked at... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/food-drink/article/3321584/why-culinary-class-wars-favourite-edward-lee-wants-people-better-understand-korean-food?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/food-drink/article/3321584/why-culinary-class-wars-favourite-edward-lee-wants-people-better-understand-korean-food?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 15 Aug 2025 04:15:08 +0000 Victoria Burrows Victoria Burrows We hear them before we see them, the hollow clang of bells ringing out over the hills above the village. As the sound draws nearer, a buzz runs through the crowd. Onlookers spread out along the edge of the steep, winding road, the main thoroughfare in the Swiss Alpine village of Seewis im Prättigau, to claim a vantage point. When they turn a sharp corner and emerge from behind a wooden-shuttered house, we catch our first glimpse of the glossy, mushroom-coloured herd, which is being led down the... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/travel/article/3318537/travel-back-time-swiss-festival-marking-summers-end?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/travel/article/3318537/travel-back-time-swiss-festival-marking-summers-end?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 18 Jul 2025 23:00:09 +0000 Victoria Burrows Victoria Burrows The South China Morning Post’s China Conference 2025 brought together renowned experts, innovators and leaders to offer insiders’ insights into the complex dynamics shaping China today, as well as Hong Kong’s role in a rapidly changing geopolitical landscape. The event shed light on how the city can leverage its enviable position as a superconnector between China and the world by embracing innovation and further strengthening its already formidable success in sectors such as finance, trade,... https://www.scmp.com/presented/business/topics/remarketing/article/3318389/live-conversation-scmps-china-conference-hong-kong-2025?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/presented/business/topics/remarketing/article/3318389/live-conversation-scmps-china-conference-hong-kong-2025?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 16 Jul 2025 23:00:15 +0000 Victoria Burrows Victoria Burrows At Chinesology restaurant in Hong Kong, culinary director Saito Chau creates char siu with Wagyu beef instead of pork, and uses “a secret sauce” to replace the rose cooking wine in the glaze. For him, the dish is not just another modern spin on a classic dish – it represents an opportunity for cultural exchange. When Chau visited Dubai last January, he saw Chinese restaurants catering to a predominantly Muslim clientele who, due to religious dietary laws, were unable to enjoy dishes such as char... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/100-top-tables/article/3316031/how-hong-kong-wooing-muslim-tourists-halal-menus?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/100-top-tables/article/3316031/how-hong-kong-wooing-muslim-tourists-halal-menus?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 30 Jun 2025 04:45:08 +0000 Victoria Burrows Victoria Burrows In the first episode of television series Mr Lyan’s Taste Trips, the eponymous British bartender goes behind the scenes at the first malt whisky distillery to open in Japan a century ago. The host, whose actual name is Ryan Chetiyawardana, meets Shinji Fukuyo, Suntory chief blender at Yamazaki Distillery in Osaka. He also chats to Hidetsugu Ueno, one of Japan’s best known bartenders, who makes him a White Lady cocktail at his Bar High Five in Tokyo, and visits a convenience store to recommend... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/food-drink/article/3311084/bartenders-travel-show-about-amazing-stories-and-people-behind-them-begins-japan?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/food-drink/article/3311084/bartenders-travel-show-about-amazing-stories-and-people-behind-them-begins-japan?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 20 May 2025 23:15:06 +0000 Victoria Burrows Victoria Burrows At two-Michelin-starred Alchemist, the immersive dining hotspot in Copenhagen, Danish chef Rasmus Munk serves his take on shrimp toast, a Hong Kong classic. Here, it’s called Crab Toast, looks more like a tartlet, and comprises a thin piece of bread roasted in Japanese sesame oil and topped with scallop, sesame oil, crab roe and tomalley, the crab’s digestive organs. In the centre is an XO sauce made from the crab shells, and the dish is covered with a blanquette, the white sauce in which the... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/food-drink/article/3306569/how-chinese-cuisine-inspiring-chefs-europes-michelin-starred-restaurants?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/food-drink/article/3306569/how-chinese-cuisine-inspiring-chefs-europes-michelin-starred-restaurants?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 22 Apr 2025 05:00:08 +0000 Italian chef Giuliano Baldessari likes to wear a rubber fetish suit in the kitchen. The skin-tight shiny black latex covers him from head to fingers to feet, leaving only his eyes and mouth exposed. He does not wear the rubber for kicks. It is, for him, a sort of therapy. Since childhood, Baldessari, now 47, has struggled with hyperactivity. A difficult upbringing only exacerbated his inability to process complex emotions and focus on tasks in front of him. When a girlfriend mentioned a... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/food-drink/article/3305679/latex-chef-michelin-star-restaurant-italy-offers-extreme-menus-push-limits?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/food-drink/article/3305679/latex-chef-michelin-star-restaurant-italy-offers-extreme-menus-push-limits?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 10 Apr 2025 08:15:07 +0000 Inside the sleek, minimalist interior of FZN by Björn Frantzén in Dubai, executive chef Torsten Vildgaard serves a small bowl of XO sauce with the main course of barbecued duck and foie gras. The sauce has deep umami flavours balanced by a caramelised sweetness and a hint of earthiness, a sigh of smoke underneath it all – heavenly when slathered on the pillowy bread that arrives alongside the duck. It seems an unlikely condiment to come across in one of celebrity chef Björn Frantzén’s outposts,... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/food-drink/article/3304982/xo-sauce-international-appeal-cantonese-staple?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/food-drink/article/3304982/xo-sauce-international-appeal-cantonese-staple?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 03 Apr 2025 04:30:08 +0000 Eating an exceptional dish is often likened to a symphony, with flavours all working together to create a harmony greater than the sum of its parts. But individual dishes are in turn one part of a greater performance: the menu. In the finest restaurants, especially those serving tasting menus, the full dining experience from amuse-bouche to petit fours is defined by a consistent harmonious flow. While it might feel like magic to a diner, the art of a menu relies on prior planning,... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/100-top-tables/article/3302092/how-create-restaurant-menu-top-chefs-hong-kongs-michelin-starred-and-other-fine-dining-restaurants?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/100-top-tables/article/3302092/how-create-restaurant-menu-top-chefs-hong-kongs-michelin-starred-and-other-fine-dining-restaurants?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 12 Mar 2025 22:15:14 +0000 Sitting back in an armchair between the bookshelves and the log fire, novelist Kamila Shamsie reads out her latest, soon-to-be-published short story. The tale, of a Pakistani goddess who takes root in a British garden, is captivating, but there is another layer to our admiration: the writing encapsulates so many of the things we have learned over the past few days – less is more; never underestimate the intelligence of the reader; show, don’t tell. As the story comes to its potent conclusion,... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/travel/article/3299440/want-write-award-winning-author-moroccan-masterclass-might-help?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/travel/article/3299440/want-write-award-winning-author-moroccan-masterclass-might-help?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 24 Feb 2025 04:00:13 +0000 When restaurateur and wine lover Trevor Gulliver and chef Fergus Henderson opened St John in 1994, London’s dining scene was a world away from what it is today. Haute cuisine was still in the throes of foam and frippery, edible gold leaf was the height of glamour and the bill at the end of the meal was gilded to match. Meanwhile, London’s more affordable restaurants were not known for the quality of their food. The wines that accompanied dinner were also unlikely to inspire raptures. “In the... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/food-drink/article/3298996/anthony-bourdains-favourite-restaurant-coming-181-fortnum-mason-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/food-drink/article/3298996/anthony-bourdains-favourite-restaurant-coming-181-fortnum-mason-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 18 Feb 2025 04:45:08 +0000 American cook and food writer Jody Eddy’s friendship with Shinobu Namae, the chef behind three-Michelin-star Tokyo restaurant L’Effervescence, was ultimately what gained her access to the kitchens at the revered Eihei-ji temple in Japan. Eihei-ji (“Temple of Eternal Peace”) was founded in 1244 by the Japanese Buddhist monk Eihei Dogen after he returned from studying in China. He founded the Soto school of Zen Buddhism and made Eihei-ji its headquarters. The temple is hidden in cedar forests deep... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/food-drink/article/3298088/japan-india-and-west-food-temples-and-monasteries-inspires-recipe-book?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/food-drink/article/3298088/japan-india-and-west-food-temples-and-monasteries-inspires-recipe-book?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 10 Feb 2025 23:15:08 +0000 There are restaurants that merit a special journey, and then there are temples of gastronomy that are worth crossing seas, negotiating seemingly never-ending roads and summiting mountains to reach. Not only do these restaurants offer some of the most exquisite food and wine on the planet, they also relieve guests of the need to move on after their meal: with rooms on site, diners can slip straight into the crisp cotton sheets of a capacious bed to digest in horizontal comfort. Here are five of... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/lifestyle/dining/article/3293244/5-restaurants-rooms-worth-trip-simon-rogans-lenclume-uk-hisa-franko-slovenia-run-netflixs-chefs?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/lifestyle/dining/article/3293244/5-restaurants-rooms-worth-trip-simon-rogans-lenclume-uk-hisa-franko-slovenia-run-netflixs-chefs?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 05 Jan 2025 00:00:09 +0000 Setting up a distillery to make whisky requires playing the long game. Once all the equipment is in place and the barley is malted, mashed, fermented and distilled into alcohol, it takes another three years of maturing in an oak cask before the spirit produced can legally – at least in Scotland – be called whisky. The most sought-after whiskies lie in wood barrels for far longer, usually decades. In the case of two ambitious Scotch whisky projects that came to fruition in 2024, you can add a... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/food-drink/article/3292870/reopened-ghost-scotch-whisky-distilleries-offer-tastes-past-and-future?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/food-drink/article/3292870/reopened-ghost-scotch-whisky-distilleries-offer-tastes-past-and-future?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 01 Jan 2025 08:15:08 +0000 How to describe the scent of ripe strawberries? Fruity, fresh, floral, perhaps a little buttery, and, of course, sweet. Except that the human nose is unable to detect sweetness. We associate the scent of ripe fruit with sweetness thanks to repeatedly eating them and tasting the sweetness on our tongue. The same is true of caramel scents and vanilla. When it comes to eating chillis, on the other hand, spiciness is neither a smell nor a taste. It is a feeling. “We detect it with our sense of... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/food-drink/article/3288172/food-scientists-book-flavorama-unlocks-secrets-flavour-chefs-call-it-secret-sauce?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/food-drink/article/3288172/food-scientists-book-flavorama-unlocks-secrets-flavour-chefs-call-it-secret-sauce?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 27 Nov 2024 23:15:07 +0000 At Koan in Copenhagen, Korean-Danish chef Kristian Baumann serves a dish called Sundae, named after and inspired by sundae, blood sausage that is a popular street-food snack in Korea. But Baumann’s version transforms the simple sausage on a stick into something more exquisite: he uses pork from black-spotted pigs raised at Troldgaarden, an organic farm in Denmark’s Jutland region, along with aromatic rice and spices. The “sausage” is deep fried in a tempura shell, encircled by a ring of perfect... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/food-drink/article/3286228/how-korean-food-rising-across-world-and-chefs-transforming-traditional-cuisine?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/food-drink/article/3286228/how-korean-food-rising-across-world-and-chefs-transforming-traditional-cuisine?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 13 Nov 2024 23:15:08 +0000 “Ours is a cuisine of millennia – what does it mean when we speak about improvement?” asks Maksut Askar, chef-owner of Neolokal in Istanbul, Turkey. “Are we improving our knowledge or recognition of the cuisine? Or are we cooking it at a refined level?” Askar instead likes to think that improvement means “bringing back our traditional cuisine, based on recipes often not written down but passed on from mother to daughter.” Yet, what Askar puts on the plate at Neolokal does not necessarily look... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/food-drink/article/3277730/turkeys-food-and-restaurants-are-becoming-bigger-draw-it-raises-its-gastronomy-game?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/food-drink/article/3277730/turkeys-food-and-restaurants-are-becoming-bigger-draw-it-raises-its-gastronomy-game?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 10 Sep 2024 04:45:08 +0000 We sit quietly in the inflatable dinghy listening to a chorus of soft clicks. Floating on the rippled mirror of the sea are pieces of ice, some gleaming transparent blue with smooth, scythe-like curves, others white and chunky, bobbing past the Zodiac. The snapping sounds are from these thousands of tiny icebergs, air bubbles popping as they melt. The ice has come from one of the four spectacular glaciers – Monacobreen, Seligerbreen, Emmabreen and Idabreen – that debouche into the 30km-long... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3275632/cruise-through-norways-arctic-svalbard-region-unveils-otherworldly-land-snow-and-ice?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3275632/cruise-through-norways-arctic-svalbard-region-unveils-otherworldly-land-snow-and-ice?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 24 Aug 2024 05:45:09 +0000 It was a moment of serendipity that allowed Michael Zee, the British-Chinese food writer behind the social media sensation SymmetryBreakfast, to find some of the most treasured recipes featured in his new cookbook, Zao Fan: Breakfast of China. Towards the end of 2022, he had finished recording a recipe for baba – a puffy, delicately fried breakfast bread served daily as part of the staff meals at Miao Lu vineyard in China’s Yunnan province – and was on his way to Chongqing by train. He decided... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/food-drink/article/3275314/breakfast-recipes-hidden-china-open-new-world-british-chinese-authors-cookbook?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/food-drink/article/3275314/breakfast-recipes-hidden-china-open-new-world-british-chinese-authors-cookbook?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 22 Aug 2024 23:15:10 +0000 When Niras opened in Tsim Sha Tsui in June last year, it made local headlines. It was the first Hong Kong concept from celebrated chef Thitid “Ton” Tassanakajohn, the talent behind Bangkok’s Le Du, named Asia’s Best Restaurant 2023; and Nusara, which ranked third on the Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants list the same year. Despite the chef’s fame, praise for the food and widespread coverage in local and international media, Niras closed within a year. Ton puts the failure down to “internal issues” with... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/100-top-tables/article/3273542/can-hong-kongs-fine-dining-restaurants-adapt-survive-its-michelin-starred-struggle-economy-dips-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/100-top-tables/article/3273542/can-hong-kongs-fine-dining-restaurants-adapt-survive-its-michelin-starred-struggle-economy-dips-and?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 08 Aug 2024 01:15:07 +0000 Macau is one of the most densely populated places in the world. Its population of just under 700,000 is buttressed by around 30 million tourists per year, everyone sharing just 33 square kilometres of land. All those people produce an awful lot of waste. According to the latest “State of the Environment of Macau” report by the Directorate of Environmental Protection Services, the city disposed of 436,828 tonnes of solid waste in 2022, averaging out to around 1.77 kilograms per resident per... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/100-top-tables/article/3270761/can-macau-teach-hong-kong-how-tackle-food-waste-most-residents-are-willing-pay-disposal?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/100-top-tables/article/3270761/can-macau-teach-hong-kong-how-tackle-food-waste-most-residents-are-willing-pay-disposal?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 18 Jul 2024 03:00:08 +0000 Barcelona-based modernist hotspot Disfrutar has been crowned World’s Best Restaurant at an awards ceremony held in Las Vegas, in the United States. The 2nd and 4th places on the list also went to Spanish restaurants: live-fire grill specialist Asador Etxebarri, headed by self-taught chef Victor Arguizoniz, and avant-garde Madrid-based DiverXO, by punk-style chef David Munoz, respectively. Two Hong Kong restaurants experienced a stratospheric rise and took home individual awards. Paris-based... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/food-drink/article/3265639/barcelonas-disfrutar-tops-2024-worlds-50-best-restaurants-2-hong-kong-fast-risers?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/food-drink/article/3265639/barcelonas-disfrutar-tops-2024-worlds-50-best-restaurants-2-hong-kong-fast-risers?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 06 Jun 2024 09:59:29 +0000 René Frank always wanted his own restaurant to be different. After more than a decade of working in three-Michelin-star restaurants around the world, including as head pastry chef at La Vie in Osnabrück, Germany, he was ready for a change. “I was tired of Michelin-star restaurants, with everyone, especially in Germany, looking at what everyone else is doing, trying to copy ideas and styles,” he says. “I was tired of running after trends.” What he dreamed of was a simple, casual place that would... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/food-drink/article/3264933/berlin-dessert-dinner-restaurant-chef-rene-frank-why-2-michelin-star-coda-needs-be-expensive?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/food-drink/article/3264933/berlin-dessert-dinner-restaurant-chef-rene-frank-why-2-michelin-star-coda-needs-be-expensive?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 02 Jun 2024 08:15:11 +0000 As a struggling young Chinese artist and actor in 1960s Britain, Michael Chow saw there were only two paths to making his fortune: open a restaurant or a laundry. He chose restaurant. It would be no ordinary noodle shop, however; dining at his restaurant would be far more than just eating a meal. Metaphorically donning the embroidered platform boots and stage robes of his father, venerated Peking opera grandmaster Zhou Xinfang, each night Chow would walk an invisible stage, and transform his... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3262889/they-said-michael-chow-was-too-chinese-be-artist-so-he-opened-restaurant-look-him-now?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3262889/they-said-michael-chow-was-too-chinese-be-artist-so-he-opened-restaurant-look-him-now?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 18 May 2024 08:15:10 +0000 In Fiesole, Italy, in contemporary Tuscan restaurant La Loggia, chef Alessandro Cozzolino cooks Prato vermouth-brushed pigeon based on the technique for roast duck that he learned in Hong Kong. Further east, in Turkey, chef Fatih Tutak serves black-skinned dumplings of blue crab alongside his take on siu mai, which are stuffed with adana kebab (ground lamb), at The Peninsula Istanbul’s Gallada, which spectacularly overlooks the Bosphorus. In 2023, chef Ángel León, at three-Michelin-star... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/food-drink/article/3260543/how-cantonese-cuisine-being-borrowed-around-world-it-threat-authenticity?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/food-drink/article/3260543/how-cantonese-cuisine-being-borrowed-around-world-it-threat-authenticity?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 28 Apr 2024 10:15:18 +0000 The valley plunges before us, lush and speckled with wild flowers. Far below, we can see our rifugio (refuge), a few stone shepherd huts on a grassy ledge above a cliff. The floor of the valley is somewhere beneath, out of sight. Across the gorge, a steep mountain rises, with chalky boulders showing between copses of conifers. Wisps of cloud stream from rocks at the summit, white against the blue sky. It is the kind of beauty that is almost painful to behold, that makes the heart soar but the... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3260337/hike-thats-not-faint-heart-week-adventure-italys-dolomites-humbling-and-awe-inspiring?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3260337/hike-thats-not-faint-heart-week-adventure-italys-dolomites-humbling-and-awe-inspiring?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 27 Apr 2024 05:15:10 +0000 In Germany, chef and restaurateur The Duc Ngo is known fondly as “Le Duc” (French for The Duke) or “the King of Kantstrasse” thanks to his seven wildly popular restaurants on Kant Street in west Berlin. Here, he is regularly approached by well-wishers wanting to say hello, shake his hand and take a selfie with him. Despite the aristocratic nicknames, Ngo is no prince, nor was he born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Some of his earliest memories are of the sharp smell of marine engine fuel and... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3259562/vietnamese-chef-germany-his-popular-fusion-restaurants-and-quest-michelin-star?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3259562/vietnamese-chef-germany-his-popular-fusion-restaurants-and-quest-michelin-star?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 20 Apr 2024 06:15:16 +0000 As the chef behind the only Michelin-star Chinese restaurant in Switzerland, Guangzhou native Frank Xu is flying the flag for his nation’s cuisine far from home. Under his direction, Le Tsé Fung, at La Réserve Geneva, a luxury hotel on the shores of the city’s famous lake, earned a Michelin star in 2016, which it retains today. It is not the first time Xu has applied his Midas touch beyond China’s shores. Before his current decade in Switzerland, he launched Shang Palace at the Shangri-La Paris,... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/food-drink/article/3259022/there-1-michelin-star-chinese-restaurant-switzerland-its-chef-talks-about-giving-authentic-taste-his?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/food-drink/article/3259022/there-1-michelin-star-chinese-restaurant-switzerland-its-chef-talks-about-giving-authentic-taste-his?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 16 Apr 2024 04:45:18 +0000 Andoni Luis Aduriz, of two-Michelin-star Mugaritz, the provocative, cerebral dining hotspot in Basque Country, Spain, which has been pushing culinary boundaries for more than two decades, is concerned about a growing uniformity in restaurants around the world. He says that new gastronomic “codes” may be stifling creativity and drowning out unique culinary personality. When Aduriz set out, 30 years ago, chefs looked to Michelin and known critics for measures of success. “We followed the Michelin... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/food-drink/article/3257919/top-chefs-decry-gastronomic-conformity-instagram-age-social-medias-influence-all-bad?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/food-drink/article/3257919/top-chefs-decry-gastronomic-conformity-instagram-age-social-medias-influence-all-bad?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 06 Apr 2024 10:15:09 +0000 To access the recipes in The Heart Surgeon’s Cookbook, you first have to cut the front cover open with a knife – or a scalpel, if you just happen to have one lying around. Making the incision and drawing the blade down the paper cover is visceral and satisfying. The act of slicing also gives an idea of what to expect within the pages: recipes that call for the finest of blades for laser-sharp cuts, syringes for injecting tissue with fat or saline, tweezers for precise grip and exact placement of... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/food-drink/article/3257415/cookbook-designed-trainee-surgeons-and-cooks-sharpens-knife-skills-and-challenges-physical-dexterity?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/food-drink/article/3257415/cookbook-designed-trainee-surgeons-and-cooks-sharpens-knife-skills-and-challenges-physical-dexterity?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 01 Apr 2024 08:15:13 +0000 A fair of the magnitude of Art Basel Hong Kong is far more than just galleries exhibiting their artists’ works. The event also offers fair visitors and the wider public a tantalising range of programmes that showcase and investigate art in its many forms and approaches. Curator Alexie Glass-Kantor has managed Art Basel Hong Kong’s Encounters sector – featuring large-scale projects – for the last seven editions of the show. This year, Encounters stretches through four corridors that divide the... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/lifestyle/leisure/article/3256901/meet-art-basel-hong-kongs-curators-alexie-glass-kantor-brings-large-scale-installations-daniel-boyd?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/lifestyle/leisure/article/3256901/meet-art-basel-hong-kongs-curators-alexie-glass-kantor-brings-large-scale-installations-daniel-boyd?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 29 Mar 2024 06:00:13 +0000 Now an established event on the regional art calendar, this year’s Art Basel Hong Kong sees the scale of the show return to pre-pandemic levels. An additional 65 exhibitors are participating in the fair compared with last year, with 242 galleries from 40 countries and territories set to display a thrilling diversity of art sure to please, confound and provoke debate in equal measure. Angelle Siyang-Le, director of Art Basel Hong Kong, said that while 2023 was a year of “reopening”, 2024 is all... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/lifestyle/leisure/article/3256868/what-catch-during-art-basel-hong-kong-2024-fairs-insights-and-kabinett-thematic-presentations-large?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/lifestyle/leisure/article/3256868/what-catch-during-art-basel-hong-kong-2024-fairs-insights-and-kabinett-thematic-presentations-large?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 27 Mar 2024 09:00:18 +0000 In the Balbanera salt pans on the flat plains of the Bay of Cádiz, in southern Spain, biologist Juan Martín Bermúdez pulls a clump of long grass from the water. It appears unremarkable, a messy bunch of thin, flat tendrils that flutter in the salty coastal breeze. But this plant is a treasure. Environmentalists have long known the value of Zostera marina in fighting climate change – underwater meadows of the seagrass can capture carbon 35 times faster than tropical rainforests. It also provides... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/food-drink/article/3252133/sea-rice-next-superfood-eelgrass-sustainable-nutrient-rich-grains-and-growing-salt-water-championed?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/food-drink/article/3252133/sea-rice-next-superfood-eelgrass-sustainable-nutrient-rich-grains-and-growing-salt-water-championed?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 18 Feb 2024 05:15:09 +0000 The year 2023 was big for chef Yoshihiro Narisawa. Not only did he celebrate the 20th anniversary of his eponymous two-Michelin-star Tokyo restaurant, but he also opened its first international outpost: Narisawa Shanghai. Covid-19 pandemic-related delays meant it took five years to open the new restaurant, in Shanghai’s 1000 Trees complex, an avant-garde, mixed-use development, designed to look like forest-capped mountains, overlooking Suzhou Creek. But the extra time meant more opportunity for... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/food-drink/article/3249480/japanese-chef-yoshihiro-narisawa-his-new-shanghai-restaurant-where-chinese-culture-and-ingredients?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/food-drink/article/3249480/japanese-chef-yoshihiro-narisawa-his-new-shanghai-restaurant-where-chinese-culture-and-ingredients?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 23 Jan 2024 23:15:10 +0000 “Chefs must respect the power they have – feeding someone is giving them the opportunity to live another day,” says Argentine-Italian Mauro Colagreco, the chef behind Plaisance, one of Hong Kong’s hottest new openings. “And life is so short,” he adds. Colagreco has a knack for getting straight to the heart of things; he runs the three-Michelin-star Mirazur on the French Riviera, which was voted World’s Best Restaurant in 2019 by 50 Best Restaurants, along with other venues around the world in... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/food-drink/article/3247442/why-argentine-chef-mauro-colagreco-3-michelin-star-mirazur-using-local-seasonal-produce-his-new-hong?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/food-drink/article/3247442/why-argentine-chef-mauro-colagreco-3-michelin-star-mirazur-using-local-seasonal-produce-his-new-hong?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 07 Jan 2024 05:15:17 +0000 A look back at 2023 shows a city gazing inward at its own past. One of the most notable culinary trends of the year in Hong Kong has been the taste for all things nostalgic, with diners and chefs showing renewed interest in traditional Cantonese dishes and cha chaan teng culture. Love for the city’s dai pai dongs and casual cafes is nothing new – Hongkongers have long enjoyed their relaxed atmosphere, lively shared tables and fast, affordable dishes such as fried eggs and spam in macaroni soup... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/lifestyle/dining/article/3245831/how-hong-kong-restaurants-embraced-casual-street-food-classics-beef-brisket-noodles-french-toast?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/lifestyle/dining/article/3245831/how-hong-kong-restaurants-embraced-casual-street-food-classics-beef-brisket-noodles-french-toast?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 01 Jan 2024 04:00:10 +0000 “My father was run by women, he was an only child in a matriarchy,” says Elena Arzak when we meet in the solid red-brick building that has housed her family’s three-Michelin-star restaurant, Arzak, in San Sebastian, in Spain’s Basque Country, since 1897. Arzak’s grandmother, who was widowed early, ran the family restaurant, with help from her mother and aunt. Before he revolutionised northern Spain’s Basque cuisine and became one of the world’s most revered chefs, her father, Juan Mari Arzak,... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/food-drink/article/3244327/3-michelin-star-san-sebastian-restaurant-arzak-elena-arzaks-father-reinvented-northern-spains-basque?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/food-drink/article/3244327/3-michelin-star-san-sebastian-restaurant-arzak-elena-arzaks-father-reinvented-northern-spains-basque?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 09 Dec 2023 08:15:16 +0000 When it comes to food, how do we define what is native? Especially in a place like Hong Kong – a city of immigrants that imports most of what it eats – what can be considered local is tricky to pinpoint. What we eat also changes over time, so identifying what is representative of a culture’s cuisine depends on when the question is being asked. The past few tumultuous years, which have seen the city battered by social unrest and the Covid-19 pandemic, have sparked a deeper exploration of Hong... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/food-drink/article/3240053/you-are-what-you-eat-hong-kong-chefs-find-ways-new-and-old-express-citys-identity?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/food-drink/article/3240053/you-are-what-you-eat-hong-kong-chefs-find-ways-new-and-old-express-citys-identity?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 04 Nov 2023 23:45:12 +0000 After chef Daniel Lee won Britain’s acclaimed reality-television cooking contest MasterChef: The Professionals in 2021, job offers came flooding in. But one by one he turned them down – even the chance for his name to be above the door at a prestigious London address: “Dan Lee at Park Lane”. Instead, the half-Chinese, half-English-Irish chef took up a residency at the laid-back Hockley Social Club in Birmingham, in the West Midlands, the city of his birth. There, he cooks his own take on Asian... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/food-drink/article/3239438/he-fed-gordon-ramsay-chicken-feet-masterchef-winner-daniel-lee-changing-perceptions-chinese-food-uk?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/food-drink/article/3239438/he-fed-gordon-ramsay-chicken-feet-masterchef-winner-daniel-lee-changing-perceptions-chinese-food-uk?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 29 Oct 2023 05:15:20 +0000 The recent wave of Hong Kong migration to Britain has sparked renewed interest in Cantonese food across the country, with quintessentially Hong Kong tastes such as milk tea, bubble tea and char siu fan now readily available. Over the past few years, restaurants, cafes, shops and online businesses providing a taste of home to Hong Kong immigrants – some 144,500 of whom have moved here since 2021 – have mushroomed in London and across Britain, notably in the Midlands. The greater visibility of... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/food-drink/article/3237819/cantonese-food-revival-uk-sparked-new-hong-kong-migrants-think-authentic-noodle-and-rice-dishes?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/food-drink/article/3237819/cantonese-food-revival-uk-sparked-new-hong-kong-migrants-think-authentic-noodle-and-rice-dishes?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 15 Oct 2023 05:15:10 +0000 Hong Kong has long had a love affair with Japanese food. From ramen shops to high-end omakase dining experiences, the country’s cuisine is generally considered healthy and almost always signifies quality and precision. The recent ban on certain seafood from Japan has understandably knocked diners’ confidence, and he rush on ingredients from areas not even affected by the restrictions is likely to push prices and make finding in-demand produce even more challenging. “It’s a dynamic landscape, and... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/100-top-tables/article/3235945/hong-kongs-japanese-seafood-ban-hurting-restaurants-while-many-sushi-teppanyaki-and-omakase-chefs?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/100-top-tables/article/3235945/hong-kongs-japanese-seafood-ban-hurting-restaurants-while-many-sushi-teppanyaki-and-omakase-chefs?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 28 Sep 2023 03:00:10 +0000 On the forested slopes below the Italian town of Fiesole, Lucy Honeychurch, the heroine of E.M. Forster’s 1908 novel A Room with a View, stumbles into a clearing bright with violets. George Emerson, who had been quietly admiring the view before her intrusion, is so overwhelmed – “he saw radiant joy in her face, he saw the flowers beat against her dress in blue waves” – that he throws social propriety to the wind and kisses her. This Tuscan scene is pivotal in the stuttering romance between... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3235301/fiesole-italy-escape-florences-tourist-crowds-tranquil-tuscan-town-has-long-inspired-authors-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3235301/fiesole-italy-escape-florences-tourist-crowds-tranquil-tuscan-town-has-long-inspired-authors-and?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 24 Sep 2023 10:15:16 +0000