The 27-year-old chef, who hails from Malaysia but has worked alongside Meta chef-owner Sun Kim in Singapore for many years, put his heritage and hawker culture on a plate with his signature creation, Celebration of Duck. “To me, they (hawker chefs) are heroes because they spend years mastering one dish… I want to showcase to the world how amazing this culture is,” declared Wong.

Lauded chef Julien Royer of three-Michelin-starred Odette, who served as his mentor, also shared that the duck dish is a “great expression of his humble roots” but is a “good mix of modernity and tradition.” And while the dish looks deceptively simple, a lot of thought, passion and skill went into it—from preparing the duck from scratch, making a proper consommé and duck jus to creating the tsukune (meatballs). Through the whole process, Royer added that Wong never lost his focus on the flavour, which he believes is the most important part of any dish.

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