Cover Hotel Icon’s reduced-fat afternoon tea
Hotel Icon’s reduced-fat afternoon tea
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As the world comes down with Olympic fever, we take stock of the most healthful places to eat and drink this month
With the Paris Olympics due to begin at the end of this month, health and wellness are top of mind for everyone, including the food that we put in our bodies.
Of course, it’s a concept that has informed Chinese cuisine for centuries—millennia even—before the first salad was ever assembled, with The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine, or Huangdi Neijing, laying out the foundations of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and the importance of diet and nutrition, as well as the concept of “food as medicine”, as far back as the 2nd century BC.
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Above André Chiang’s newest broth creations include Hokkaido milk and miso broth
André Chiang’s newest broth creations include Hokkaido milk and miso broth
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In our modern culinary scene, that through-line remains today—albeit in different forms. Any Chinese person knows the comforting, soul-healing powers of a nutrient-rich soup, and at Wynn Macau, celebrity chef André Chiang elevates the craft of broth-making to a high art with his latest venture, the appropriately named Broth by André Chiang. Channelling his fine-dining palate, Chiang has cooked up eight signature broths as the starting point of a stratospherically high-end hotpot experience.
Among the likes of traditional Taiwanese satay broth and a sauerkraut-inspired sour cabbage broth spiked with Kaoliang liquor, two stand out for their nourishing qualities: a Hokkaido miso and milk broth, packed with collagen and fermented enzymes; and a fig and wild mushroom broth inspired directly by TCM, with up to ten types of mushrooms imparting their immunity-boosting and qi-tonifying, or balancing, properties.
Above André Chiang’s newest broth creations include fig and wild mushroom broth
André Chiang’s newest broth creations include fig and wild mushroom broth
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For more in bacterial action, look towards Hotel Icon’s all-day-dining restaurant Green, which has launched a three-course afternoon tea featuring seasonal Japanese fruit and AkkMore, a reduced-fat formula developed by The Hong Kong Polytechnic University’s Department of Food Science and Nutrition (FSN) and Research Institute for Future Food (RiFood).
Made from fungus extracts, AkkMore is essentially a healthy, plant-based substitute for cream that cuts total fat content by more than 80 per cent and caloric content by half, all the while targeting obesity and pre-diabetes—meaning that the building blocks of desserts such as clotted cream, mousse and ice cream are no longer the vessels of saturated fat and cholesterol that they used to be. Pair this with the freshest Japanese fruit and you have a delectable afternoon tea that’s good for palate and body alike.
Above A vegan chocolate croissant at Maya
A vegan chocolate croissant at Maya
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Over at Maya, a new opening in Quarry Bay, healthy, plant-based bites are the order of the day, too. Styling itself as a vegan patisserie, Maya has whipped up an array of tantalising treats like a vegan egg tart, pandan pineapple bun and pistachio croissant, alongside probiotics-packed cream “cheeze” from sister brand Cultured—all in the name of digestive well-being and an enhanced immune system.
But after dark is where things get interesting: the bakery slips its daytime guise and becomes a bar, slinging cocktails that are easy on the gut. On the menu are libations like the Honeybee Gin Tea and a vegan Negroni, but as a self-professed coriander lover, I was most intrigued by the Coriander Blast, which combines passion fruit, turmeric and green kombucha with a hit of the divisive herb.
What would the Yellow Emperor think of where the “food as medicine” concept has gone in the two millennia since his treatise was published? I’d hazard a guess, given how ingrained health and wellness have become with our modern-day diets, that he’d be pretty chuffed.
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Gavin Yeung is a Hong Kong-based writer and was the editor at Tatler Dining. He has written across the realms of F&B, design, fashion and travel, with a focus on in-depth profiles and experiential features. Previously, he held editorial positions at Hypebeast, Soho House and Vogue Hong Kong. He’s also a keen photographer and aspiring home bartender, and is constantly thinking of original, Cantonese-inflected (and occasionally questionable) cocktails to shake up. Follow him on Instagram at @gaviny.
