Just desserts: why four young chefs chose baking over any other job, and where in Hong Kong to find their stunning takes on pavlova, panna cotta and more
- A collective of young pastry chefs is wowing Hong Kong diners with sweet creations, served at places including the two-Michelin-star Écriture
- Joanna Yuen, who works at Ando, says she was ‘put on Earth to make desserts’. Cyrus Yan at Écriture says that ‘no meal is complete without dessert’
Joanna Yuen feels that pastry-making is her destiny. “I’ve been put on Earth to make desserts,” says the pastry chef at Ando, a Michelin-star restaurant in Hong Kong’s Central district on Hong Kong Island.
She is among a crop of young talent wowing patrons with sweet sensations at the city’s most acclaimed dining establishments. Although she can’t imagine doing anything else, a career in the kitchen wasn’t always a given.
Yuen knew from age 12 that she wanted to become a pastry chef, but “I was raised in a traditional Asian family, and my parents wanted me to go to university”, she says. After completing a political science degree in Australia, she returned to Hong Kong to work in advertising.
“I was glad I went into advertising because it taught me the importance of storytelling and emotion, which still guides what I do,” she says.
She started baking as a hobby when she was transferred to Singapore, and posted her creations on social media.
Buoyed by feedback from her followers, Yuen decided to pursue her passion, securing an internship in 2017 at The Landmark Mandarin Oriental, Hong Kong. “It was a steep learning curve, with lots of late nights, but the effort was worth it,” she recalls.
