Meet the chefs bringing Michelin-worthy food to private homes and kitchens in Hong Kong, from Peking duck to Chiuchow cuisine

What’s the worst part of hosting a dinner party? Sadly, it’s the most essential part of hosting a dinner party: cooking and cleaning. Though many can help with the latter, it’s harder to delegate the former, and more difficult still to find someone who can complete the task at a fine-dining level. Yet, a growing class of private chefs in Hong Kong are providing exactly that: Michelin-worthy meals created in the comfort of one’s own kitchen.

The city’s restaurant industry still hasn’t recovered from the mass closures brought on by the pandemic and skyrocketing rents thereafter. And now, with the economic downturn, the situation is even more challenging, as diners budget and often opt to stay at home. For Hong Kong’s one-percenters, hiring private chefs began as a pandemic workaround and the habit stuck. So much so that chefs can now confidently say the dish most called for during an at-home service is: Peking duck, cooked to a perfect pink medium.

“When I was cooking in Europe, duck was always my favourite,” says chef Felix Cheung. “Every time I ordered it, it would always be cooked to perfection – medium or medium rare. But the skin would never be as good as the Peking duck that we make in China and Hong Kong.”

So, after studying Peking duck cooking techniques in Hong Kong, Cheung finally arrived at a perfect marriage of the two: a bird with the glassy skin of a classic Peking duck but cooked to a European-style medium rare. Cheung calls it Peking Duck, Beak-to-Tail.

Though the chef counts as his clientele a steady stream of the city’s professionals in entertainment, finance, government, business and architecture, he has never worked in a Hong Kong restaurant.

Born and raised in Hong Kong, Cheung started his culinary education in 2016 in Melbourne, Australia, before moving around Britain, working at London’s now-three-Michelin-starred The Ledbury, and helping open a farm-to-table concept in Worcestershire, in the West Midlands. He describes his approach as being a blend of English and French techniques, influenced by Southeast Asian flavours. In 2020, Cheung arrived in Hong Kong, family in tow, with the intention of taking an extended holiday in his hometown, but was forced to remain as the pandemic hit.

Today, the chef believes the pandemic ushered in a renaissance of sorts. “The dining scene actually became more interesting,” he says. “Hongkongers love to eat out and they love to travel. But they couldn’t travel [back then], so they made going out to dinner more like a trip. They were willing to spend more and travel farther than just Central or Sheung Wan.”