Jamaican-Chinese chef Craig Wong talks about Patois, his Asian-Caribbean fusion restaurant in Toronto, and his unique signature dishes
- Craig Wong, who has worked for Alain Ducasse and Heston Blumenthal, talks about how his fusion restaurant combines Jamaican and Chinese cuisines
- With signatures like jerk chicken chow mein and pineapple bun burgers, Patois, in Toronto, Canada, bridges East Asia and the Caribbean
In his kitchen, Craig Wong combines soy sauce, spring onions, ginger, thyme, pimento, pineapple, nutmeg, scotch bonnets and rum in a blender to make his signature fragrant Caribbean jerk paste, which he uses as a marinade for roasted jerk chicken.
Wong, 42, is the chef-owner of Patois, a restaurant serving Jamaican-Chinese cuisine in Toronto’s Little Italy. One of his signature dishes, jerk chicken chow mein, involves jerk paste mixed with oyster sauce in a stir-fry of onions, garlic, shiitake mushrooms, bak choi, chicken and Shaoxing wine. His menu also features the likes of Chinese pineapple bun burgers, and honey and Maggi beef short ribs.
He confidently declares there is no other restaurant in the world like his, and he might be right.
Wong’s connection to Jamaica goes back three generations on both sides of his family, until his parents moved to Canada in 1975.
Born in Scarborough, north of Toronto, Wong has fond memories of his paternal grandmother preparing a delicious range of Jamaican and Chinese dishes such as fried chicken, potato salad and steamed egg with minced pork. Back in Jamaica, she ran two canteens for factory workers and government staff, cooking Jamaican food with Chinese ingredients, and Chinese food with Jamaican ingredients.
