Life.Culture.Discovery.

How May Chow, one of Hong Kong’s most notable chefs, is rebranding herself

The Little Bao founder and ‘Asia’s Best Female Chef’ in 2017 is no stranger to reinvention, and her latest foray is her most ambitious yet

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Toronto-born May Chow was awarded the Asia’s Best Female Chef title in 2017. Photo: Jocelyn Tam

Published: 6:15am, 26 Jan 2025

In hindsight, if it were on Wikipedia or IMDb, it would be described as a ‘critically acclaimed commercial flop’,” admits May Chow of her restaurant Happy Paradise, which closed in 2022 amid pandemic restrictions.

It’s a characteristic statement coming from the Toronto-born chef, part of her usual self-deprecation, often mixed with an acute awareness of pop culture, tinged with a modicum of world-weariness. And I’m speaking to Chow, one of Hong Kong’s most recognisable chef-restaurateurs, at a peculiar inflection point in her career.

While May Chow runs several restaurants, she is best known for Little Bao in Soho, Hong Kong. Photo: Jocelyn Tam

Her calling card has been Little Bao, the diminutive Soho restaurant that arose from a food-market stall she initially set up in 2009, where her innovative mini-bao gained a cult following among locals and tourists alike. Soon after launching in 2013, the restaurant became as famous for its perennial queues as its slow-cooked pork belly gua bao and truffle fries.

Then came Second Draft, a gastropub opened in 2016 in partnership with Young Master Brewery, followed by Happy Paradise in 2017, a loud and proud neo-Cantonese diner that, Chow says, “truly represented myself while also being bold and brave”. It was the year Chow was awarded the title of Asia’s Best Female Chef by Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants, which “opened another door for me to see what my potential could be”. To date, she remains the only recipient of this accolade without a background in fine dining.

May Chow’s first Lunar New Year pudding collection. Photo: May Chow Projects

By 2018, Chow could lay claim to a burgeoning restaurant empire, with five restaurants across Hong Kong and Bangkok, and a string of television appearances, on Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown, MasterChef Asia, MasterChef UK and Top Chef. And Chow achieved much of this success off the back of her own financial resources, without relying on operating partners.