As a chef, Gray Kunz (below) is talked about in the same breath as other masters like Thomas Keller and Jean-Georges Vongerichten. Hong Kong diners, though, may remember him as the executive chef of the revered Plume restaurant during its prime in the then-Regent Hotel (now InterContinental Hong Kong) for five years in the early 1980s.
After two decades in New York at Lespinasse and most recently at Cafe Gray in the Time Warner Centre, the star chef, raised in Singapore and Switzerland, is returning to Hong Kong in autumn.
He will take the reins at a new eatery in a boutique hotel called The Upper House in Pacific Place. The property will operate under the Swire Group's new hotel arm and will be completely designed by local wunderkind Andre Fu of AFSO. The hotel and restaurant are due to open in October, with Cafe Gray Deluxe to be on the 49th floor.
Actually, chef Kunz is back in town at the moment and cooked for a couple of exclusive preview dinners last week for food writers and Swire executives. The rest of us will just have to wait.
