The talented former chef of The Ledbury and Pensons explores the possibilities of local seafood for this limited time pop-up
In the third instalment of Remixed Origins, a Tatler Dining Kitchen series where young chefs look to their roots as inspiration for a contemporary tasting menu, Taiwanese-born chef Felix Cheung traces his love for seafood back to his mother-in-law’s seafood trade in Hong Kong’s Lau Fau Shan.
Cheung will explore the possibilities of a menu entirely dedicated to locally sourced seafood, upon which he applies the techniques gleaned from working in the kitchens of Michelin-starred restaurants around the world, from The Ledbury to Pensons. The result is an intriguing genre-blurring dishes such as freshwater white eel smoked over applewood and grilled; hairy crab cavatelli; and geoduck with Jerusalem artichoke and grains.
The young chef has gained a cult following over the years, with sell-out pop-up dinners held at Test Kitchen and Good Good Grocery—at the former, he showcased his hand-rolled pasta, while at the latter he crafted a sophisticated vegetarian tasting menu in the tiny Sai Ying Pun cafe. For his debut at Tatler Dining Kitchen, Cheung set to work re-examining his perceptions of local seafood, drawing inspiration from his family’s trade and setting himself the goal of sourcing all of the produce for his menu from Lau Fau Shan. It’s a concept that even he found challenging, given Hong Kong’s easy access to high quality seafood from Japan and Europe—but the more he explored, the more possibilities unravelled.