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Broth by André Chiang (above) is a new hotpot restaurant in Macau where the chef puts his spin on the popular meal. Photo: Lisa Cam

Can André Chiang reinvent hotpot? At Broth, the chef’s new Macau restaurant, he is trying

  • André Chiang is putting his spin on the communal hotpot, with a focus on the stock that goes into soup bases, and cooking meat separately

It is no secret that Chinese people love a good hotpot. It is an easy solution at group gatherings that can cater to different food preferences, requires minimum preparation and epitomises the Chinese palate’s preference for piping hot food.

Chinese hotpot restaurant chain Haidilao has around 1,400 outlets across the globe and was ranked by marketing consultant Brand Finance the 14th most valuable restaurant brand in the world.
So when André Chiang, one of Asia’s highest-profile chefs, decided to take the genre and put his signature spin on it, while charging 4,888 Macau patacas (US$605) for two for the experience, it piqued our interest.
Broth by André Chiang has taken over Japanese restaurant Mizumi at Wynn Macau, where it will serve Chiang’s brand of hotpot for an indefinite period of time.
Broth by André Chiang has taken over Japanese restaurant Mizumi at Wynn Macau.
For those unfamiliar with Chiang, who received a 2018 Lifetime Achievement Award from Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants, he became famous for opening his eponymous French fine-dining restaurant in Singapore, then closing it not long after it received its second Michelin star to pursue other projects.

He continues to oversee two-Michelin-star Raw in the city he grew up in, Taipei in Taiwan.

Sichuan Moon, which he opened at Wynn Palace in Macau in 2019, also closed last year after receiving two Michelin stars; Chiang remains the resort’s culinary ambassador.

Sichuan Moon offered an opulent dining experience that could last up to five hours. The tea was made with water flown in from Sichuan province in southwest China and an army of more than 20 chefs would prepare a 15-plus-course service for only one dinner seating a day.

Many diners may not be aware that this latest venture is not Chiang’s first foray into hotpot.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Sichuan Moon offered a secret hotpot menu to VIP guests. Now the chef has elaborated on the concept with Broth.

Chiang received the 2018 Lifetime Achievement Award from Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants.

So what does the award-winning chef have in store for hotpot lovers?

First, the soup base is made with double-boiled bone broth.

When it comes to hotpot, people usually focus on ingredients, but ingredients are a basic consideration when it comes to chefs,” says Chiang. “You don’t usually have a chef for hotpot, because you prepare good ingredients, then you basically just put it all in the stock.

“So we want to focus on the soup base itself, that’s where we spend most of our time. We have eight different soup bases that we started with a bone broth which we prepare for eight to 12 hours.”

There is also a vegetarian base available.

Here, you don’t need sauce. Your soup is your sauce. It is so flavourful that you won’t need anything extra to dip in.
André Chiang

The fun part of the meal is that it starts with a tasting of the eight soup bases, so diners get to try some of the flavours before they choose.

Variations include sauerkraut, made with gaoliang Chinese liquor and sour cabbage; a Sichuan-style broth that incorporates green pepper­corns and pickles; a Taiwanese-style satay flavour; ma la, or numbing spice; laksa; and a vegetarian herbal infusion of figs and mushrooms.

Two other broths stand out for their complexity. The first is the Suki, which is a French execution of the traditional Japanese sukiyaki flavour, for which Chiang adds premium Échiré butter to a beef broth that is topped with a sauce laced with Perigord truffle.

The Hokkaido flavour hotpot base is a miso and milk broth inspired by traditional Japanese soy milk broth. Photo: Broth
The other is the Hokkaido, a miso and milk broth inspired by traditional Japanese soy milk broth. The addition of miso enhances the umami and silky texture of the broth, which is best paired with seafood.

Regarding the lack of condiments on the table, Chiang says, “Here, you don’t need sauce. Your soup is your sauce. It is so flavourful that you won’t need anything extra to dip in.”

First to come is a seafood tower with premium ingredients such as crab, lobster, grouper, and abalone.

Each of the ingredients has an optimal cooking time, but it is OK if you cannot remember how long the lobster takes – three or five minutes? – because the staff are there to remind you.

The laksa soup base is one of eight available for hotpot eaters at Broth. Photo: Broth

After the seafood come the vegetables but from here, Chiang starts to play with the concept of hotpot.

Premium meats such as Kagoshima Wagyu beef, Hungarian Mangalica pork and Welsh lamb are not cooked in the same broth, but shabu-shabu style, table-side, in a simple bone broth.

The reason? Chiang does not want to waste the produce.

“Sometimes with hotpot you forget about the meat in the soup, and with high-quality meats like Wagyu, you’d kill all the flavour by overcooking it,” he says. “In addition, depending on the base you choose, that flavour might not be suitable for a meat like Wagyu, so it should be cooked separately.”

This rings true with our selection of the Sichuan soup base. After making a dent in the seafood tower and a hearty serving of Japanese vegetables, the slices of beef, pork and lamb cooked in the lighter broth inadvertently act as a palate cleanser, allowing us to taste the flavours of the premium cuts.

Another different detail to Broth’s hotpot experience is the choice of starches to pair with premium dashi (a Japanese stock of kelp and bonito fish flakes) to end the meal, where patrons get a choice of ramen, udon noodles or congee.

A seafood tower for two in the first part of Broth’s hotpot experience. Photo: Lisa Cam
The carby ending to a hotpot meal is usually an afterthought – a filler – but this last item is what we enjoy the most. The dashi is an umami bomb wrapped in the comforting blanket of our choice of congee and after the clean taste of the meat, it is exactly what we needed, even if we did not know it.

This, of course, is part of Chiang’s hotpot experience.

“We give you the most flavourful broth while your palates are clean at the beginning, and then in the middle part you enjoy the quality ingredients, and then at the end, when your palates have already been bombarded with flavours, we give you something super clean, which is what your palates crave,” Chiang explains, satisfied.

So did Chiang, with his magic touch, reinvent hotpot as he did with Taiwanese ingredients at Raw, or Sichuanese cuisine at Sichuan Moon? Not quite, but he sure did turn it on its head.

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