How Michelin stars sold fickle Italians on Asian flavours of France-born...
What was your childhood like? “I was born in France in 1968 – in the Haute-Savoie [region], which borders Italy. My family is from the south of Italy, but my grandfather moved to France after the war....
View ArticleNew wines from the forgotten vines of Europe – viticulturists resurrect...
Any viticulturist will tell you that the older the vine, the more character the wine produced from it will have. Older vines imbue more depth and complexity to wine. The downside is that the quantity...
View ArticleQuick and easy puff pastry – all the taste and texture without the palaver
Puff pastry is my favourite dough to make. Classic puff pastry – which calls for butter to be spread between layers of dough, then repeatedly rolled out and folded six times, to create many layers –...
View ArticleSavour tastes from Beijing to Hangzhou: Chinese recipes from cities along...
This is not the type of book that typically wins a Gourmand World Cookbook Award. Chinese Cuisine Along the Grand Canal (2014), which won Best Chinese Cookbook in the USA and Special Award of the Jury...
View ArticleCake enthusiasts rejoice, Hong Kong’s first baking festival to debut in July
Sharing slices of home-made cake or warm crusty bread with family and friends is one of life’s simple pleasures. But baking is not as easy as throwing a few ingredients into a bowl. It is a complex...
View ArticleWhy a cocktail is so much more than a drink, and why a cocktail bar is so...
How did you get interested in bartending? “When I was 17 years old I worked in a bodega – a local small bar that served wine and beer. I was studying medicine at the time, but I was fascinated with...
View ArticleMaking great vintages from montepulciano, grape known for early drinking wines
With two meanings, the name “montepulciano” causes confusion in the wine world. On the one hand, Montepulciano is the name of a town in southern Tuscany whose wine, vino nobile di Montepulciano, is...
View ArticleHow to make Thai fried-shrimp salad, a Hong Kong helper’s speciality
Fresh shrimp are easy to find – they’re available year-round at wet markets and some of the larger supermarkets – and they’re easy to cook. The flavour and texture of fresh shrimp are almost always...
View ArticleWhy Taipei’s only three-Michelin-star restaurant is reason enough to visit...
What is it? A glam restaurant blending Cantonese banquet fare with dinky baskets of dim sum, in the five-star Palais de Chine Hotel, in Taipei. The hotel sits atop Taipei Main Station, where the...
View ArticleSalon du Chocolat: a sweet weekend treat for Hong Kong’s chocolate lovers
“A little bit of sweetness can drown a whole lot of bitterness,” Italian Renaissance scholar Petrarch declared in the 14th century. This week, the Salon du Chocolat – the world’s largest event...
View ArticleEat your way around India’s regional and seasonal vegetarian cuisine with...
Food obviously played a key role in Pushpesh Pant’s childhood. In his introduction to The Indian Vegetarian Cookbook (2018), he writes that he was raised by an extended family in Mukteshwar, “a small,...
View ArticleA New York sommelier reveals why he quit music when he discovered sake
How did you end up in New York? “When I was 19 years old I went to Boston to study music composition at Berklee College of Music. After a year I got bored with the city because I wasn’t old enough to...
View ArticleA wine tasting with Chateau Lafite’s cellar master - what a Hong Kong...
The opportunity to spend an afternoon tasting wine with the maître de chai (cellar master) of a Bordeaux first-growth – namely, Francis Perez, of Château Lafite Rothschild – is not to be missed. It...
View ArticleTwo salads for a satisfying summer meal
I’ve never been satisfied with a green salad (dressing on the side) for a meal – an hour later I get hungry and then eat everything in sight. The way I see it, main-dish salads should be like any other...
View ArticleLearn how to make magical macarons: a Hong Kong baker gets creative
With their rosy cheeks, golden horns and cascading purple manes, Anita Caswell Ng Hoi-ying’s distinctive unicorn-themed goodies are sure to get the social-media likes rolling in for the students of her...
View ArticleFrench food is not all about haute cuisine, as this cookbook shows
Many people continue to associate French cuisine with dishes that contain copious amounts of butter and cream served by snooty waiters who treat their customers with disdain in overheated, thickly...
View ArticleSultan’s Table shows there’s more to Turkish food than kebabs in Hong Kong
Hong Kong diners could soon learn that there is a lot more to Turkish food than kebabs at Sultan’s Table, a delightfully cosy specialist restaurant that has just opened on Old Bailey Street, Central....
View ArticleHong Kong university’s wine club heads to Bordeaux for ultimate taste test
At the Left Bank Bordeaux Cup’s Asia competition, which was held at the Grand Hyatt, in Wan Chai, in February, the coach of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) team asked me to...
View ArticleChungking Mansions: don’t believe the horror stories – some of Hong Kong’s...
A recent discussion with colleagues about where to find a cheap and tasty curry in Hong Kong had this writer suggesting Chungking Mansions, five blocks and 17 floors on Nathan Road, in Tsim Sha Tsui,...
View ArticleThree red Burgundies that prove wines from the French region don’t have to be...
Burgundy’s 29,067 hectares under vine represents a mere 3.7 per cent of all the vineyards in France. Despite its relatively small size, the market is highly fragmented. Of the region’s 3,901 wineries...
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