WANDA HUANG

May Chow

Founder, Little Bao and Happy Paradise

Chow continues to move the needle for gastronomy in Hong Kong, bringing muchneeded waves of creativity and collaboration to keep the scene fresh. Her restaurants continue to fly the flag for Hong Kong cuisine. She’s also responsible for leading the charge towards offbeat culinary events such as The Gelinaz Shuffle’s Hong Kong edition, where she brings together talents both established and emerging.

Nick Law and Jeremy Li Co-founders, NIP Distilling

Seeking to capture Hong Kong’s botanical diversity within a gin, Li and Law have made serious inroads as one of its first homegrown distillers. Their NIP Rare Dry Gin has already won the title of Best Hong Kong Contemporary Gin at the World Gin Awards, though they’re not resting on their laurels, with seasonal special releases and plans to produce other spirits in the future.

Richard Ekkebus

Director of culinary operations and F&B, Landmark Mandarin Oriental

Driving change when it comes to sustainability in professional kitchens, Ekkebus puts his progressive approach into practice through his focus on society, sourcing and the environment, as exemplified by his efforts at Amber. He also works closely with sustainability consultancy Food Made Good and is an active voice on Clubhouse, particularly around the importance of operating fine dining more thoughtfully.

Sam Lui

Founder, Wendy’s Wok World

When Lui embarked on a project to explore Chinese traditions through the lens of wok cookery, she intended it to be purely conceptual, with “Wendy” as her alter-ego. Today, the private dinners she holds in her family home in Sheung Shui are the talk of the town, thanks to her wok skills and intriguing ambition.

Sean Oakford

General manager, Roganic

Not only does Oakford manage the award-winning service team at Roganic, but also he is also deeply involved with the sourcing of the restaurant’s local ingredients alongside chef Ashley Salmon. That’s one aspect that sets Roganic apart and led to it becoming the only restaurant in Hong Kong to receive a Green Michelin Star this year.

Tegan Smyth

Founder, Table of Two Cities

Smyth’s five-year-old grassroots project has brought attention to refugee communities through empowering events where they can showcase their cuisines and skills.

Theresa Yiu

Founder, Dashijie

Fondly known as Dashijie—or Dai C Jie in Cantonese—yiu is the quiet force shaping chefs today with her infinite knowledge of Chinese cuisine and her desire to uphold time-honoured techniques and traditions. Outside of industry circles, her eponymous food brand brings decades of expertise straight into homes around Hong Kong, most notably her signature sauces and festive foods such as mooncakes and puddings.

Tiffany Shek

Founder, Grain of Salt

Shek is the founder of Hong Kong’s first dietician-operated café, Grain of Salt, on Gough Street. Shek’s goal is to combine healthy eating with nutritional counselling. Her shop serves as a clinic and cafe where she is available for medical nutritional therapy to manage health-related issues such as obesity, hypertension and high cholesterol.

coronavirus pandemic has taken on humanity, but also more specifically to the pressures faced by the hospitality industry. “The pandemic has equalised everyone in this world. We view all our industry community as an integrated ecosystem, and want to do our best to channel positivity and benevolence along the way.” In 2020, Chan’s Metabev worked with the Chinese bottled cocktail company Laiba to create Bar in a Bottle, a series inspired and made by leading bartenders in Hong Kong during a period of bar closures, with proceeds going back to the venues. The company also partnered with COA to auction an exclusive bottle of Jose Cuervo 250 Aniversario tequila to raise funds for Save Hong Kong F&B. This year Chan hopes to raise the bar even further. “We want to instil positivity through family and work balance, along with personal wellness, and channel this energy towards worthy charitable causes. [Running] Hong Kong and the moon is our first mission, but we all have friends in other countries, and there are longer distances we can cover. Why stop at this challenge when we can do greater things?”

Foraging for food has never been unusual for Huang. “On both sides of my family, eating wild was part of our daily food source. I never thought much of it until, in the last few years, there was this interest in wild edibles,” says Huang, who comes from five generations of Chinese herbalists on her father’s side and a farming background on her mother’s side. An educator by profession, Huang forages in her spare time, not only sharing her extensive knowledge of wild edibles and medicinal plants on private foraging excursions but also taking chefs, including Uwe

Opocensky of Petrus and Robin Zavou of Mandarin Oriental’s Krug Room, and bartenders on adventures to seek out local delicacies. Most recently, she has been working with spirit companies, including Fernet Hunter, to distil distinctive drinks using Hong Kong herbs. To source foraged produce, Huang works with several organic farms, including Yi O on Lantau Island, which is essential, as foraging on government land or in country parks is illegal. Huang wants to preserve tradition. In Canada, where she grew up and normally spends her summers, wisdom around traditional wild food is revered and preserved, but she hasn’t found this to be the case in Asia. In fact, foraging is often seen as something shameful. Yet as Huang forages in the far reaches of Hong Kong, she gathers information from village elders who also know about wild edibles, and one day hopes to write it all down. But for now, she educates people through her tours and where possible in the experiential education adventures she leads. “I didn’t take on my family’s five generations practising Chinese medicine, so when I do foraging tours and talk about plants, that’s my way of passing that knowledge down; it’s the best way I can connect with my ancestry.”