Way of the wok: Hong Kong Michelin star chef Jayson Tang follows in the footsteps of a master
- Raising Cantonese cuisine to new levels of fine dining, young chef pays tribute to mentor Paul Lau
- The boy who preferred sushi now celebrates his Cantonese food heritage, giving it a modern twist
Jayson Tang developed an interest in picking up a wok and ladle at a young age, as his family ran a Hong Kong street food stall, a dai pai dong.
“When I was just five or six years old, I would turn on the kitchen stoves at home to cook in secret,” he recalled with a laugh. “One day, my mother found out. She was so shocked.”
Even his favourite Japanese comics, Oh! My Konbu, was a manga series about a cook’s son who helped his father in culinary adventures.
No surprise, then, that at 36, Tang is one of Hong Kong’s youngest Michelin-starred Cantonese chefs.
As Chinese executive chef at JW Marriott Hotel Hong Kong, he led a 40-strong team at its Man Ho Chinese Restaurant to win one star in the Michelin Guide last year and retained it this year.
But it has been a long journey to the top. His early interest in cooking took him to the Chinese Culinary Institute, the “Shaolin Temple” of Chinese cooking in Hong Kong, and then through years of apprenticeships.
