When? November 23, 2021

Where? The Sky Lounge at The Upper House

Who? May Chow, Vicky Cheng and Janice Leung-Hayes

Here’s what you missed: Chinese cooking has never had such a spotlight on a world stage as it does today, largely thanks to the innovators and storytellers who champion the flavours, techniques and history behind this extremely diverse cuisine. To explore Chinese food in detail, Charmaine Mok, Tatler’s content director of dining, sat down with food writer and critic Janice Leung Hayes; May Chow, the chef and owner of Little Bao and Happy Paradise; and chef and owner of VEA and Wing Restaurant Vicky Cheng, for a fireside chat on the future of Chinese fine dining and the changing perception of high-end Chinese food. The panellists sunk their teeth into topics such as what could be done to champion the skills that their chefs bring to the table as well as the importance of wider education on the art of Chinese cooking.

Conversations flowed about the need to respect and preserve the authenticity of Chinese fine dining and not be swayed by the commercial viability of a menu, a subject on which Chow remarked: “We’re lucky to have such a multicultural audience in Hong Kong, but we need to be true to our heritage. I’ve observed how restaurants overseas do renditions of traditional Chinese food and adapt it [to that market’s tastes]. That’s sometimes my fear of expanding into the US. I don’t want to do a “rendition” of an egg roll or a crab rangoon. It’s hard because we know it’s commercially viable, but it isn’t progressing Chinese fine dining.”

Leung Hayes added that her work is motivated by the need to educate people around the world and share the many narratives that underpin Chinese cooking. “The reason I write about Chinese food is because once I find out how much work goes into it, I think, ‘Why does no one else know about this?’” she said. “People really need to dig into the research and tell these stories. There is a lot of education needed around Chinese food stories: from ingredients to technique to sequencing of dishes, they are worth telling on a global stage.”