The co-founder of healthy meal plan service Nutrition Kitchen reveals the restaurants he loves in Hong Kong and Singapore, what he misses most and where he goes for a guilty pleasure
“Never sacrifice on flavour.” That’s one of meal plan service Nutrition Kitchen’s key principles. While balancing the macronutrients in each of its dishes is essential, flavour is never forgotten.
“We approach each dish from a nutritional and flavour perspective,” says Pete Fisher, co-founder of Nutrition Kitchen and founder of ATP Personal Training. “We understand that there are some compromises that must be made in order to hit certain macronutrient targets, however we’re believers in going big on flavour and we use a wide variety of herbs and spices from around the world.”
As a result, eating healthily with Nutrition Kitchen tastes really good, with meals that range from sesame crusted tuna with shredded cabbage, carrots, red peppers, bok choi and shitake mushrooms, and green papaya and bumbu Balinese chicken salad with butter lettuce and nahm pla phrik, to seared rainbow trout with pickled beetroot, kale and blood orange vinaigrette on the menu in both Hong Kong and Singapore. Similarly enticing dishes can be found on Nutrition Kitchen’s meal plans across the UK, which launched in January 2022, with Makhani coconut chicken curry with broccoli and green beans; burnt miso chicken with pomegranate and pickled walnut salsa, roasted aubergine and courgette; and Moroccan chicken tagine with preserved lemon, spiced cauliflower and fennel among them.
One of the principles of Nutrition Kitchen is to provide “the foundational elements that allow clients to spend ‘discretionary calories’ how they choose,” says Fisher,. “This means that clients can be on Nutrition Kitchen during the week and relax a little at weekends enjoying meals with friends and family while still making progress towards their health and fitness goals.”
For Fisher himself, who is a personal trainer, strength coach and nutritional consultant, he says “most of the time I eat pretty healthily, and I’ve been doing this so long now that on a subconscious level I gravitate towards sensible choices. Typically this means focussing on protein first and avoiding really oily or needlessly starchy meals. I typically have more carbohydrates with my evening meals, or around training.”
But that’s doesn’t mean that his tried-and-tested favourites from his time in Hong Kong and Singapore are always on the “sensible” side. Pizza, dumplings and Peking duck pancakes all feature, as well as the odd burger, even if you will find an avocado toast among his recommendations. Having spent a decade in Asia, split between Hong Kong, a place he considers to be his second home, and Singapore, his return to the UK has found Asian flavours distinctly lacking. He reminisced about some of the highlights for him of Hong Kong’s and Singapore’s dining scenes.