Celebrity Life

’Tis the season to reflect on the past, mull over the present and hope for the future, as we find out how four local personalities will be spending the holidays...

4 Hong Kong Personalities on the Festive Season

Jessica Jann, Actress

What’s your Christmas family tradition?

Lots of time together. I always used to go back home to California and be with my parents. We’d have a lot of meals together, spend time together, watch holiday movies and just be with each other.

What’s your favourite Christmas memory?

Years ago, when I was home for the holidays, I remember having a lovely family meal out with everyone. Then my cousins, my sister and I went to Downtown Disney in Anaheim. We ordered hot chocolate, sat by a fireplace, chatted nonstop and then got doughnuts afterwards. This year will be the third Christmas holiday when I won’t be back home.

Which moment from past holidays still makes you laugh?

Once my sister got us all, the entire family, these ugly, ugly Christmas sweaters but we absolutely loved wearing them! We laughed and took so many pictures!

What’s your Christmas wish?

I’m so lucky because my grandma (Abu) is in Hong Kong with all of us. I miss my parents, sister and nephew, but I’ll definitely be calling them. This year, I might still be in the hospital as my due date is really close to Christmas Day. My husband, Kenneth, and I are so excited, anxious and nervous. Christmas has always been my favourite holiday and I really can’t wait to hold my baby girl for the first time. I just wish she’s happy, healthy and I can’t wait to meet her.

Richard Ekkebus, Chef

Which Christmas tradition from your youth do you remember most fondly?

Back home in the Netherlands, my mum put a lot of effort into decorating the house and it was a true collective family effort – dad did the lights and fixed the tree, and my sisters and I would decorate the tree with garlands and hang Christmas baubles. But the most important part was the family reunion – grandparents, uncles and cousins all meeting. Large dinner tables and extended meals. We were allowed to sip our dad’s glass of wine to get a taste. The laughter, the happiness and, of course, the festive decorations and gifts.

What was your most memorable Christmas gift?

When I was 10, I got a concave skateboard to learn to ride in half-pipes. I was super into skateboarding but my skateboard wasn’t great, so my mum ordered one from a skate shop in Amsterdam – the real McCoy.

What’s your Christmas wish and hope this year?

Christmas is always a little awkward for me. I’m super-stressed, as it’s an important day for my guests. So we’re the family that unwraps gifts very early in the morning before I head off to work, to look after other families. With the pandemic, it will be a challenge this year, just as it was last year. We’d normally have our kids in Hong Kong but this year there’s an empty nest and – that’s somewhat sad. I want to make sure they all have a great Christmas, and my wife and I have organised parcels to be sent early so they reach them in time. We’ll probably do a thing on Zoom on Christmas Day.

Nick Buckley Wood, Art Connoisseur

What’s a favourite Christmas memory?

I don’t have many favourite Christmas memories in Hong Kong. I grew up in the city till I was 13 and then was in the UK. We don’t really celebrate Christmas that much in the Wood family. We all get together, and I suppose that’s the best memory – everyone being under the same roof. Otherwise, everyone’s scattered around the globe. I do like tropical Christmases more than snow-capped ones, probably because I’ve had more Christmases in Singapore and Hong Kong than elsewhere. So, sandcastle over snowman any day.

So a favourite Christmas meal for you would be?

Hainan chicken rice – with a giant chicken. And all the trimmings.

What’s the best Christmas present you ever received?

A puppy when I was a boy. A puppy really is the greatest present ever, at any age. I named him Tiffin.

Money no object, if you could bid for any artwork as a Christmas present for yourself, what would it be?

Maybe a Caravaggio. What’s a good Christmas-y painting? Maybe a giant pumpkin by Yayoi Kusama. What’s your end-of-the-year plan? I’ll be in Cambodia this year for Christmas. I bought an apartment and spent most of the year there, I was basically exiled – there’s no Covid where I stayed and I worked remotely. I’m also working on a non-profit project there. So this year I’ll be working on my apartment and the charity.

Elly Lam, Influencer

What’s your Christmas family tradition?

I have a big family, lots of brothers and sisters, and we all sit and watch old Christmas movies while sipping on homemade mulled wine.

What’s your favourite Christmas memory?

Cooking Christmas dinners together with loved ones every year is always a favourite. Oh, and I love Secret Santa!

Which moment from past holidays still makes you laugh?

Serving salty eggnog! It was ridiculous because it’s so easy to make. I was frantically trying to finish making Christmas dinner and, in the rush, I used salt instead of sugar in the mix! My helper served it thinking that’s how it’s supposed to taste. It was slightly embarrassing for me to serve failed eggnog – we still laugh about it.

For 2021, what’s your Christmas wish?

To be able to travel somewhere cold and snowy for Christmas this … well, I guess next year. I miss having a White Christmas.

The post Home for the Holidays: 4 Hong Kong Personalities on the Festive Season appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

Looking at the restaurants listed as World's 50 Best this year, some new (and old) trends might be just over the horizon.

The post What the future of fine dining looks like appeared first on The Peak Magazine.

We know sports and watches go hand in hand and watch brands have for a long time, been tapping the world's greatest athletes to become their ambassadors.

Still, it's exciting to watch these sportsmen in action, with their preferred timepieces strapped on their wrists in the moments of their greatest glories — as they win their biggest matches, break world records and take home medals. Here are just a few of the best watches and their owners, spotted at the Tokyo Olympics.

Mutaz Essa Barshim

Qatari high jumper Mutaz Essa Barshim is a gold medallist at the Tokyo Olympics, sharing first place with Italian Gianmarco Tamberi. The two have come a long way from injuries and setbacks, and shared an emotional moment when the judge ruled that they can indeed tie for first place rather than have a jump-off. Barshim has long been an ambassador for Richard Mille and has the RM 67-02 named after him. The RM67-02 is extremely light thanks to its case made of Carbon TPT and Quartz TPT. The watch is fitted on what the brand calls a comfort band, an elastic strap that is entirely seamless and non-slip, a feat clearly on display as Barshim wears the watch during the entirety of the competition.

Armand Duplantis

The American-born Swedish pole vaulter Armand Duplantis is an Omega ambassador and wears the Omega Seamaster Aqua Terra "Ultra Light", fashioned from a strong yet lightweight alloy called Gamma Titanium and weighs only 55 grams on the sports strap. The movement inside is also built from titanium. Duplantis is the current world indoor record holder with a height of 6.18 metres. He wins gold at the Tokyo Olympics and very nearly smashes his own world record en route.

Naomi Osaka

Japanese tennis player Naomi Osaka, who also lit the Olympic cauldron at the opening ceremony, wears the TAG Heuer Aquaracer diver's watch with a white dial and matching with rubber strap during her match.

Yohan Blake

Known as the second-fastest man in history after Usain Bolt, Yohan Blake is also a Richard Mille ambassador and wears the RM 59-01, which he wears during the 100m race. The RM 59-01 is a manual winding tourbillon equipped with a special calibre designed for sprinters and is specially hand-painted in green and yellow in honour of the Jamaican flag - Blake's home country. Blake didn't manage to get into the finals for the race, but the man, and his watch, are still winners in our hearts.

Sydney McLaughlin

The athlete joined TAG Heuer as an ambassador earlier this year, and is spotted wearing the TAG Heuer Link with a ceramic case and diamond bezel during her 400-meter hurdles event — which, by the way, sees her setting a new world record and clinching gold.

Alexander Zverev

German tennis player Alexander Zverev captures Olympic Gold in Tokyo in the men's singles event. Zverev announced that he's joined the Rolex family earlier in June, alongside tennis heavyweights like Roger Federer and Dominic Thiem. He's spotted wearing the Rolex Skydweller off the court, as seen in this Instagram photo of him and his gold medal.

Belinda Mencic

Belinda Mencic, gold medalist at the Tokyo Olympics in the tennis women's singles event and silver medallist at the women's doubles event, is seen wearing a two-tone Rolex Daytona on the stage.

Jessica von Bredow-Werndl

Jessica von Bredow-Werndl is a German dressage rider and champion at the Tokyo Olympics. An ambassador for Richard Mille since 2016, she's spotted wearing the RM 07-01 in black ceramic with a diamond dial during the competition.

Stephanie Gilmore

In the first-ever surfing event at the Olympic Games, Stephanie Gilmore, part of the Breitling squad, is spotted wearing the bright orange Breitling Superocean.

The post Hong Kong’s Top Sustainability Champions on the Future of Dining appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

Feel free to protest copiously online against our bold-faced proposition that Richard Ekkebus is the most famous and finest chef living in Hong Kong. The culinary director of the Landmark Mandarin Oriental, with a staff of 72 (at last count) oversees all cuisine at the hotel. Under his supervision of the property’s collection of restaurants and bars, Ekkebus created and then championed progressive restaurant Amber into prominence, ranking (56th) on the World’s 100 Best Restaurants 2018. Just one feather in his highly festooned cap; for the 10th consecutive year in 2018, Amber was awarded two stars in the Michelin Hong Kong and Macau guide.

While most would rest comfortably on their star-studded laurels, for the past six years Ekkebus has had grand plans to completely alter what was essentially a faultless restaurant, and had the lofty idea of changing not only its DNA but also expanding the cuisine culture of the five-star hotel as a whole. But not with predictable, tedious global expansion, rather with in-house, evolutionary changes to ensure that the hotel would be a key dining destination in a city long overcrowded with culinary alternatives.

But first, a bit of background. Ekkebus began his career with an apprenticeship in his native Netherlands under Michelin-starred chefs Hans Snijders and Robert Kranenborg. In his home country, he won the prestigious Golden Chef’s Hat for Young Chef of the Year, an honour that encouraged him further to perfect his craft and dispense with his engineering-degree studies. This was much to the dismay and chagrin of his father, who didn’t speak to him for two years after he quit college. But under the tutelage of some of the greatest chefs in France, including Pierre Gagnaire, Alain Passard and Guy Savoy, he honed his skills.

While in France, how could this foreigner make his mark in the notoriously difficult, esoteric, distinctly French, overtly snobby world of chefs and their kitchen-confidential games? Well, for one thing, he refused to play. Ekkebus didn’t even bother to compete. Instead, his wannabe “gypsy soul” led him on a flight to Mauritius to become executive chef at the Royal Palm and then, years later, to Sandy Lane in Barbados. He still considers Mauritius home (he has a sprawling house there -- “where my wife and kids go a few times a year, far more than I do!”). In 2005, he was appointed executive chef for the Landmark Mandarin Oriental through an accident of fate (more on that later).

While things were swimming along, in December 2018, the hotel’s signature restaurant, Amber, closed for renovations over a four-month period. Ekkebus spent his time exploring new ingredients, contemplating the needs of diners and evolving a bold new culinary philosophy.

Amber’s revered French-style cuisine was changed dramatically -- the restaurant’s progressive menu has now dispensed with dairy products, minimised refined sugar and reduced salt -- inviting diners to appreciate flavours in their purest form. So much effort and such a big, expensive gamble. Will it pay off?

While it wasn’t the first question that came to mind when we finally meet in the innards of the hotel, it was one that lingered. Having dismounted his beloved bike and freshly changed from all-black denim into the crisp white linens worn by all cooking staff, Ekkebus discussed, well, just about everything during a series of conversations.

First, the basic question: Why renovate Amber when it had stellar reviews and a mile-long waiting list? You know the adage, if it ain’t broke…

That’s a good question, but to put it simply I didn’t want to take for granted the fact that Amber was so successful for so many years. I asked myself, if we continue in the same way, will it have another 50 years of shelf life? So, I came up with this new sort of evolution on the old Amber -- which by the way, wasn’t so old.

I also thought, why not add three more restaurants while we’re at it? So we went a bit insane. We opened SOMM by Sommeliers, which has a very strong food component. We built a brand-new Amber, of course, and a private room that’s hidden behind a wine cellar. Then we have two Japanese eateries: Sushi Shikon, the only three-Michelin-star sushi restaurant in Hong Kong, moved in with us, and also Kappo Rin, whose chef Masa-san is from Kyoto. It’s also supervised by the head chef of Sushi Shikon.

Not only the restaurant, but you’ve got a brand-new look too.

I’m going to be 53 soon, so I’m trying to be healthier. What’s going to be the next 15 and probably the last 15 years of my career? Is it going to be the same old, same old or is it going to be something very different and exciting? I decided to do something different and exciting.

For the restaurant, it’s more than a cosmetic, interior design change…

Exactly. Well you can’t just make a cosmetic change -- that’s just lipstick on a pig. A delicious pig, but still a pig! I really wanted to make a profound change. When we opened 15 years ago, we were a disrupting force. I think we wanted to be, once again, this disrupting force, but in a thoughtful way. We decided, in a French restaurant, to take out that old style of cooking, cut refined sugars, and minimise salt. Not to become a more healthy restaurant but really to improve the experience. In a restaurant like this, we need to change the perception of what fine dining could be. And that’s the statement we want to make in the new Amber.

You’ve involved many from the local community in this project.

Well, I think we all talk about sustainability but people always forget about the sustainability of making sure that people around you are able to make a good living. I wanted to make sure that we support local artists, local tailors, local food suppliers. My son is an artist; he studies at Parsons and I know how difficult it is to make a career in the arts.

I used to buy French jackets for all the chefs to wear. One day I asked a great local woman, who has a line called Milk, if she wanted to make chef jackets for me. And she brought me this great jacket -- now all my staff uniforms are from her. It’s creating this organic cosmos of people that live on the success of the restaurants. Everything in our orbit, we want them to succeed.

Also, you can’t live for 15 years in Hong Kong and not be sensitive to how much opulence there is but also so much waste too [gesticulating outside to the crowded streets of Central] -- in the sense that people don’t even realise the problem that they’re creating. I felt that we as a restaurant need to be more in the forefront of trying to create a movement from a professional perspective and making a change in Hong Kong and especially in how we consume it.

It was very important for us that that became the golden thread through the whole project. We wanted to cut out the industrial washing of white linen, so we have no tablecloths. We also went for natural and stained materials instead of, you know, dyed, chemical things.

Does this go all the way down to ingredients? There’s a certain high-status value to state that the steak is from Argentina, the wagyu from Japan, the red wine from France, the white from New Zealand and so on.

Of course. In the past I always thought that chicken from France would be the best chicken, but we’ve started to find a source closer to home. We have a chicken that comes from New Territories because there’s a farm where people are doing great things and we want to support them and see that they can make a living out of that.

And we’re building a rooftop garden here as we speak to grow all the small vegetables and herbs. You know something funny? Most of my chefs have no clue how a vegetable or flower or a herb grows! And it’s very strange because I was born and raised in the countryside.

Garden rooftops around Central… sounds lofty.

But we have to start somewhere -- to make Central more green, and to bring more oxygen to Central. We really need to reduce our carbon footprint. Maybe the majority of our restaurant guests aren’t bothered with it, but through this messaging and by explaining why, we can plant a little seed of this idea to buy local. We did the maths; we were bringing in 35,000 kilograms of dairy products every year. Think of that carbon footprint. Insane.

The menu won’t change fundamentally to something tediously healthy, will it?

We’ve always been seafood-focused, because that’s who I am. I was born and raised next to the sea, so seafood is where I’m comfortable. I’ve always loved vegetables. I had a hippie mum and we were always veggie-driven in our home. And it’s a very Dutch thing. I always have a heavy hand on vegetables but a very light style of cooking. So we were never a place like Caprice or Robuchon, butter and cream. We’ve always had a lighter touch. I want people to have an amazing meal here and not go into a food coma after. I thought of this after a recent trip to France.

Home base of all fine dining.

Exactly. We ate at all the fine restaurants, food marathons. We ate at so many Michelin-star restaurants but after, we could do nothing. We wanted to go see the museums but we collapsed in food comas. And I thought, it should be a better feeling when you leave a restaurant. That’s what triggered me to cook differently.

When we cut the salts and sugars, the flavour was better. We replaced cream with tofu. Maybe not as exciting, but we replaced milk with water. All of a sudden there’s a very different flavour profile. I had this little discussion with my team about how much dairy we would use in a menu on average. We put everything on a tray: the cream, butter, milk. The tray was so heavy – who wants to eat all this in one sitting?

What else did you eliminate?

We started by asking the question, what really makes you feel bad after eating? We identified refined sugars. We need protein, but let’s use better protein. We need fat. So we started to buy all these different types of oils; we identified about 70 blended and basic oils. We use about 30 on a daily basis now. People don’t like salty foods. So we started to work more with umami and less with salt.

I call them dogmas, but I think these are limitations actually. [They push] us to be more creative. Instead of ultimately falling back on a little cream, a little butter, it forces us to think. We want to bring in fat elements that could enhance the dish. Then we experimented with oils; olive oil, flaxseed oil, rice-bran oil, almond oil, avocado oil, pumpkin-seed oil, all types of flower oils -- and then all of a sudden we see the possibilities these oils have within the flavour profile.

What brought you to Hong Kong, by the way?

After Barbados, I was on my way to New York when 9/11 happened. Every plan went on a toss, as everything I’d planned with my family was gone. And then Mandarin Oriental came along and offered me a couple of opportunities that I didn’t want initially. They made me an offer I couldn’t refuse; they asked me to create a restaurant from scratch. They just asked us to make it a world-famous restaurant.

Is your family in the hospitality business?

My grandparents were. My grandfather ran the bar and my grandmother was always in the kitchen. Because my father was a child of hotel-running parents, he always told us never to go into hospitality; you’d have no private life, no family life and it’s too much hard work and, “I don’t want you to go through this. I’ve seen it with my parents and they both died before they were even 60.” I was studying engineering, and to earn money on weekends, I worked in the kitchens. I hated what I was studying and I loved what I was doing part-time, so I made the switch. My father didn’t speak to me for years -- but then later he came around and he was very proud of me.

How did you land your first apprenticeship?

I would read Gourmand, a very famous French magazine at the time, about all these famous chefs. I would buy books in French, but my French was very average and I would obsess over these people, especially Guy Savoy. I heard hundreds of people wanted to learn under him. But I was also very clever: I knew he loved rugby and I used to play rugby. I wasn’t that great, but I made sure to talk a lot about rugby and how much I loved it. He said, ‘You’re hired.’ Sometimes you need to do your homework.

What was so special about the great chefs you worked with?

I think Guy Savoy really made a mark on me on a human level, because he was so strong. Some people really have it in themselves to lead people and he’s a natural-born leader. You’d want to follow him if he walked into a fire, without question. I’ve worked with people who’ve been extremely tough on me, like Robert Kranenborg in Holland, a two-star chef. He really taught me a lot about cooking and the refinement of cooking, and he always called it playing with fire. Cooking is not just putting things on the stove; it’s about regulating fire and how to get the best extractions. And then working with Pierre Gagnaire was about trusting your instincts. He’s not a guy who’s about written recipes, his style is very unconventional. He’s like the jazz man of cooking. I learned from him the only person that’s in charge when you’re cooking is yourself.

So you've been to Pierre Gagnaire's restaurant Pierre in Hong Kong?

Yes, of course, many times. When he [Gagnaire] comes to town, we try as much as we can to catch up. I still call him 'chef'. I’m not competitive with him or his restaurants. I want to do well for myself, not disappoint myself. You don’t want to do well to beat other people, you do it for yourself. For the pride you have in what you do.

Speaking of pride, what did the Michelin star mean to you when you first got it? 

It’s the greatest recognition that we’ve had through all these years of re-positioning and rethinking. But that honour hangs like the Sword of Damocles -- I’ve been reading in The New Yorker about chefs who killed themselves over the fall of a rating or the pressure to maintain it. It’s just an opinion, after all.

I was very close friends with [the late chef and owner of La Côte d’Or in Saulieu, France] Bernard Loiseau and it’s extremely personal and it’s very hard to grasp for me. Some people can’t take it. Opinions aren’t facts, no matter how well articulated.

Very true. 

It does piss me off, though, I’m going be honest with you. I stopped reading the TripAdvisor reviews because it affects my day and it shouldn’t because it’s one person’s opinion. There are colleagues, however, whom I really respect; when they come here, I really want to hear what they think. Opinions are like... well, they’re like a butthole.

Excuse me? 

Everyone has one. But it doesn’t mean anything. Constructive criticism, that I can take.

Photography Nic Gaunt | Art Direction Bex Gaunt | Styling Tasha Ling 

The post Chef Richard Ekkebus Brings a Dining Evolution to Hong Kong appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

You may have already read our June cover story featuring chef Richard Ekkebus of Amber, in which he explains his new approach to fine dining -- no dairy, less sugar, etc. -- but that's not all we spoke to him about. Here, in this exclusive online interview, Ekkebus reveals his guilty pleasure, what makes him angry in the kitchen, and much more.

Guilty pleasure?

French fries -- not McDonald’s, I’m talking about real French fries like the ones my grandmother used to make. Where I’m from, we baked fries in kidney fats, or beef fats. It gives a very specific, very gold, very soft inside, very crispy outside texture -- good fries make me cry!

Ever been food-poisoned?

Yes, with a cold pressed juice, here in Hong Kong! It was supposed to be a healthy food option with kale and apple. It was bad. Violent.

Say no more. When you have a banquet, is that the most stressful day?

No. It’s about organisation and preparation. We have a sheet where all the details of the events are on. So it’s actually very constructed, like a well-oiled machine. We have an early morning meeting, we go over critical control points, time slots and then action.

Favourite food destination?

Japan. Without a doubt. It’s not just food, it's high art. Any major chef who has travelled the world will say the same. Not just Japanese food, any food. They perfect it. I had the greatest slice of pizza in my life in Tokyo -- for the life of me I can’t remember the name of the place. I went to the kitchen -- entire staff was Japanese. They take the ordinary, make it sublime. Their desire for perfection is admirable.

What's the strangest food you've tried? 

I’ve tried everything. I've eaten monkey. I've eaten insects. There's nothing I will say no to, because I need to understand what it's about. When you are a guest in a foreign home or country, you try what they have. So I've even tried whale at someone's home because it's disrespectful to say no!

When you go out, what do you eat?

Anything and everything different -- it's like music. You want to see my playlist? There’s rap, there’s opera, there’s rock. Food is the same. There’s not [just] one food that can nourish me. Even literature is the same: I read everything.  I read on my phone, I read on my iPad. I read Spanish literature to biographies of Leonardo Da Vinci. That is life, that’s enrichment. Not going into a narrow tunnel. I try everything life offers.

What's on your dining wish list?

South America. There are lots of restaurants. I've been to Peru but I would love to go to Argentina. I'd love to go to Brazil and discover more. I want to head to Chile.

There are too many reality TV cooking shows and celebrity chefs. Do they amp it up for good television?

Of course -- they exaggerate for entertainment. Listen, I worked with Gordon Ramsay when I was in Paris and we were both very young chefs with Guy Savoy. He was a bully but not as you see him on TV. I think he created this image for himself for ratings. He’s not like that in reality. If he really was that aggressive all the time, nobody would really want to work with him.

What makes you angry in the kitchen?

Am I relentless at times when I see people goofing off, or they display a sense of "I don’t care"? I get really cross, for sure, because there is another person on the other side of the wall paying HK$3,000 for a meal and his expectations are the same as any critic, star or celebrity. So if you’re indifferent, it means you chose the wrong restaurant to work for.

What's in your refrigerator at home?

There's always a nice bottle of Champagne, a nice piece of ham, some salted butter, and jams. I love jams and I buy a lot of very beautiful jams. And there's always fresh fruits in the fridge too.

Are your children into cooking?

No. My son is in the arts and my daughter studied literature. They've been in my kitchens since they were babies but showed little interest. But they are all foodies. My son is a student now and I see on his Instagram all the Michelin-star restaurants he's eating in while travelling -- how he pays for it, I don't know. When I was a student, I lived on ramen noodles.

Does your wife cook?

She's a phenomenal chef; my house has the best food in town -- after Amber.

The post 12 Questions with Chef Richard Ekkebus of Amber appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

Chefs Richard Ekkebus and Mingoo Kang come together to create, but also learn.

The post Four Hands Are Better Than Two appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

Chef Richard Ekkebus talks about Instagram foodies and the evolution of a Hong Kong culinary landmark.

The post What Makes Amber’s Culinary Director Mad? appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.