In the second of a two-part feature on restaurants in Asia that are redefining the fine-dining experience, we look at how one brave chef—restaurant Amber’s Richard Ekkebus—is championing dairy- and gluten-free alternatives over traditionally decadent dishes
We’ve reached a point in the evolution of fine dining where limitations become the new benchmarks. Whereas before a food allergy or intolerance would be met with an eye roll at best (and a dressing down at worst), the contemporary chef is looking at the matrix of cookery through a prism that magnifies the appeal of a culinary challenge. Enter Richard Ekkebus, the original renegade chef at The Landmark Mandarin Oriental in Hong Kong—and a champion for change in all the years he has spent working at and reworking the menu at Amber, the hotel’s crown jewel among its restaurants.
Of course, if you’ve been paying attention, you’d know that this veteran chef has been quietly at it for years, slowly moving the chess pieces until one day there’d be a culinary checkmate where all expectations are thrown out the window. The year 2018 was a reckoning, when Ekkebus closed down Amber in preparation for massive renovations—not only aesthetically, but from the inside out.
