Celebrity Life

2020 has been a very tough year for the hospitality industry in Hong Kong and all over the world. Throughout the pandemic, however, the city's bars and restaurants have showed remarkable resilience and creativity and have continuously adapted and reinvented themselves. With the fourth wave of Covid-19 cases hitting the city just before Christmas, these top restaurants have come up with new lunch menus, delivery and take away options to make sure that they can continue to feed us and keep us company.

22 Ships

Recently revamped Spanish eatery 22 Ships, helmed by chef Antonio Oviedo, is offering a new weekend à la carte lunch menu featuring all its trendy revisitations of Iberian classics as well as take out and delivery options for walk in orders and via JIA Everywhere.

22 Ships, 22 Ship Street, Wan Chai, Hong Kong; +852 2555 0722

AULIS

Aulis, Simon Rogan's intimate chef table experience in Hong Kong, has launched a new lunch set menu that includes refined Modern European delicacies like the Pigeon with red cabbage and blackberry and the acclaimed Truffle Pudding. The menu is available for one session from Tuesday to Friday and on Saturday for two sessions (12.30 and 3.30).

AULIS by Simon Rogan, UG08, Sino Plaza, 255 Gloucester Rd, Causeway Bay; +852 2817 8383

The Diplomat

Acclaimed speakeasy cocktail bar The Diplomat has launched the new 3 Martini Lunch promotion, welcoming guests to dine on a refined menu of pub grub and cocktails all day long. Additionally, the bar is offering a premium Cocktails To-Go bottled cocktail service, created to enjoy professionally mixed cocktails at home. To celebrate the festive seasons, The Diplomat is also bringing some much-needed festive cheer in the form of 12 Days of Cocktails, an advent calendar that offers guests the opportunity to enjoy special Christmas-themed cocktails at home until December 25th.

The Diplomat, Shop 1, LG/F, H Code, 45 Pottinger St, Central; +852 3619 0302

Écriture

Two Michelin star French restaurant Écriture has relaunched Écriture A La Maison, a take out and delivery service that features set menus for two or four guests. Highlights of the sets include the famed Caviar & Uni Tart, the Line Caught Brittany Turbot and the Bresse Chicken.

Écriture, 26/F H Queen's, 80 Queen's Road Central, Central; +852 2795 5996

Bayfare Social

Pan Mediterranean concept Bayfare Social at Rosewood Hong Kong, which blends elements of Spanish cuisines and Asian influences, is offering a new selection of take out and delivery options through Deliveroo as well as catering packages and an à la carte menu for dining in from Tuesday to Sunday (12-6pm).

Bayfare Social, 5/F, Rosewood Hong Kong, 18 Salisbury Road Tsim Sha Tsui; +852 3891 8732

Tate Dining Room

Vicky Lau's Michelin-starred elegant take on innovative French cuisine Tate Dining Room is offering a new festive lunch menu featuring delicacies like the Spiced Oil Confit Vension with Peppercorn Sauce and Aubergine. Additionally, newly opened lifestyle and gourmet boutique Date by Tate offers plenty of original and elegant takeaway options, like the very intagrammable Gastronomy Gourmet Boxes.

Tate Dining Room, G/F, 210 Hollywood Rd, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong; +852 2555 2172

Castellana

Italian restaurant Castellana has made some of its popular Piedmontese delicacies available for takeout and delivery. Additionally, the restaurant offers a new festive set lunch menu with Alba white truffle also available from Monday to Saturday with special openings on Sundays from December 20th to January 3rd. Castellana has also recently launched an online store with exclusive Italian products, Owl of Minerva.

Castellana, 10/F, Cubus, 1 Hoi Ping Road, Causeway Bay; +852 3188 5028

La Rambla by Catalunya

La Rambla's famed Catalonian feasts are now available for delivery and take out through La Rambla@Home and Deliveroo. Options include dinner and sharing sets featuring signatures like the Avocado Lobster, Seafood Paella and Pan De Cristal Con Tomato. Additionally, the restaurant is also offering lunch from Monday to Saturday and all-day brunch on Sunday.

La Rambla by Catalunya, 8 finance st. 3071-73 Level 3, ifc mall, Central; +852 2661 1161

Duddells

Micheline-starred restaurant Duddells has made some of its sumptuous Cantonese banquets available for delivery and take out via JIA Everywhere. Some of these season's special include the decadent and refined winter claypot dishes, such as the Lamb with Winter Bamboo Shoots and Winter Mushrooms and Chinese Preserved Meat Clay Pot Rice.

Duddells, Level 3 Shanghai Tang Mansion, 1 Duddell St, Central; +852 2525 9191

Penicillin and Dead&

Penicillin, Hong Kong's first sustainable bar that recently opened in the heart of SoHo and its sister bar Dead&, both by industry legends Agung Prabowo and Roman Ghale, have launched new takeaway offerings and new opening hours. Penicillin is now offering bottled cocktails available for delivery (upon spending a minimum amount) and grab and go as well as new service hours for food and drinks from 2 to 6pm. DEAD &’s 250ml cocktails are also now available to sip and enjoy at home alongside mouth-watering signature food items like the Dead Dog and the &Wings.

Penicillin, Amber Lodge, L/G, 23 Hollywood Rd, Central; +852 9880-7995

Dead&, G/F, 18 Wo On Lane, Lan Kwai Fong, Central; +852 +852 9886 5711

Simon Rogan at Home

Following the latest restrictions, Simon Rogan’s Michelin-starred Roganic Hong Kong has brought back its award- winning delivery and takeaway service, Simon Rogan at Home. The new 3-course menu features festive delights such as roast turkey and Caramelised chestnut and celeriac soup with hazelnut.

Roganic, Sino Plaza, UG/F 08, 255 Gloucester Rd, Causeway Bay; +852 2817 8383

The post Here’s How You Can Continue to Eat at These Top Restaurants This December appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

2020 has been a very tough year for the hospitality industry in Hong Kong and all over the world. Throughout the pandemic, however, the city's bars and restaurants have showed remarkable resilience and creativity and have continuously adapted and reinvented themselves. With the fourth wave of Covid-19 cases hitting the city just before Christmas, these top restaurants have come up with new lunch menus, delivery and take away options to make sure that they can continue to feed us and keep us company.

22 Ships

Recently revamped Spanish eatery 22 Ships, helmed by chef Antonio Oviedo, is offering a new weekend à la carte lunch menu featuring all its trendy revisitations of Iberian classics as well as take out and delivery options for walk in orders and via JIA Everywhere.

22 Ships, 22 Ship Street, Wan Chai, Hong Kong; +852 2555 0722

AULIS

Aulis, Simon Rogan's intimate chef table experience in Hong Kong, has launched a new lunch set menu that includes refined Modern European delicacies like the Pigeon with red cabbage and blackberry and the acclaimed Truffle Pudding. The menu is available for one session from Tuesday to Friday and on Saturday for two sessions (12.30 and 3.30).

AULIS by Simon Rogan, UG08, Sino Plaza, 255 Gloucester Rd, Causeway Bay; +852 2817 8383

The Diplomat

Acclaimed speakeasy cocktail bar The Diplomat has launched the new 3 Martini Lunch promotion, welcoming guests to dine on a refined menu of pub grub and cocktails all day long. Additionally, the bar is offering a premium Cocktails To-Go bottled cocktail service, created to enjoy professionally mixed cocktails at home. To celebrate the festive seasons, The Diplomat is also bringing some much-needed festive cheer in the form of 12 Days of Cocktails, an advent calendar that offers guests the opportunity to enjoy special Christmas-themed cocktails at home until December 25th.

The Diplomat, Shop 1, LG/F, H Code, 45 Pottinger St, Central; +852 3619 0302

Écriture

Two Michelin star French restaurant Écriture has relaunched Écriture A La Maison, a take out and delivery service that features set menus for two or four guests. Highlights of the sets include the famed Caviar & Uni Tart, the Line Caught Brittany Turbot and the Bresse Chicken.

Écriture, 26/F H Queen's, 80 Queen's Road Central, Central; +852 2795 5996

Bayfare Social

Pan Mediterranean concept Bayfare Social at Rosewood Hong Kong, which blends elements of Spanish cuisines and Asian influences, is offering a new selection of take out and delivery options through Deliveroo as well as catering packages and an à la carte menu for dining in from Tuesday to Sunday (12-6pm).

Bayfare Social, 5/F, Rosewood Hong Kong, 18 Salisbury Road Tsim Sha Tsui; +852 3891 8732

Tate Dining Room

Vicky Lau's Michelin-starred elegant take on innovative French cuisine Tate Dining Room is offering a new festive lunch menu featuring delicacies like the Spiced Oil Confit Vension with Peppercorn Sauce and Aubergine. Additionally, newly opened lifestyle and gourmet boutique Date by Tate offers plenty of original and elegant takeaway options, like the very intagrammable Gastronomy Gourmet Boxes.

Tate Dining Room, G/F, 210 Hollywood Rd, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong; +852 2555 2172

Castellana

Italian restaurant Castellana has made some of its popular Piedmontese delicacies available for takeout and delivery. Additionally, the restaurant offers a new festive set lunch menu with Alba white truffle also available from Monday to Saturday with special openings on Sundays from December 20th to January 3rd. Castellana has also recently launched an online store with exclusive Italian products, Owl of Minerva.

Castellana, 10/F, Cubus, 1 Hoi Ping Road, Causeway Bay; +852 3188 5028

La Rambla by Catalunya

La Rambla's famed Catalonian feasts are now available for delivery and take out through La Rambla@Home and Deliveroo. Options include dinner and sharing sets featuring signatures like the Avocado Lobster, Seafood Paella and Pan De Cristal Con Tomato. Additionally, the restaurant is also offering lunch from Monday to Saturday and all-day brunch on Sunday.

La Rambla by Catalunya, 8 finance st. 3071-73 Level 3, ifc mall, Central; +852 2661 1161

Duddells

Micheline-starred restaurant Duddells has made some of its sumptuous Cantonese banquets available for delivery and take out via JIA Everywhere. Some of these season's special include the decadent and refined winter claypot dishes, such as the Lamb with Winter Bamboo Shoots and Winter Mushrooms and Chinese Preserved Meat Clay Pot Rice.

Duddells, Level 3 Shanghai Tang Mansion, 1 Duddell St, Central; +852 2525 9191

Penicillin and Dead&

Penicillin, Hong Kong's first sustainable bar that recently opened in the heart of SoHo and its sister bar Dead&, both by industry legends Agung Prabowo and Roman Ghale, have launched new takeaway offerings and new opening hours. Penicillin is now offering bottled cocktails available for delivery (upon spending a minimum amount) and grab and go as well as new service hours for food and drinks from 2 to 6pm. DEAD &’s 250ml cocktails are also now available to sip and enjoy at home alongside mouth-watering signature food items like the Dead Dog and the &Wings.

Penicillin, Amber Lodge, L/G, 23 Hollywood Rd, Central; +852 9880-7995

Dead&, G/F, 18 Wo On Lane, Lan Kwai Fong, Central; +852 +852 9886 5711

Simon Rogan at Home

Following the latest restrictions, Simon Rogan’s Michelin-starred Roganic Hong Kong has brought back its award- winning delivery and takeaway service, Simon Rogan at Home. The new 3-course menu features festive delights such as roast turkey and Caramelised chestnut and celeriac soup with hazelnut.

Roganic, Sino Plaza, UG/F 08, 255 Gloucester Rd, Causeway Bay; +852 2817 8383

The post Here’s How You Can Continue to Eat at These Top Restaurants This December appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

Top chefs are turning to urban farming for sustainability, quality control and community health – but not at the expense of luxury.

The post Farming in the concrete jungle appeared first on The Peak Magazine.

Top chefs are turning to urban farming for sustainability, quality control and community health – but not at the expense of luxury.

For more stories like this, visit www.thepeakmagazine.com.sg.

It wasn't until I boarded my plane from Hong Kong to London and found myself thinking retrospectively, as one does, about my life choices that I realised how similar I am to Roganic. We’re both born and bred in London and then, very naturally, we leapt across land and sea from one food capital to another and planted ourselves at the quieter end of Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay.

But before I bore you with my life story or delve into the subject of Roganic, let’s take this back to 2002, when acclaimed British chef Simon Rogan, who’s worked with the likes of Jean Christophe Novelli, Marco Pierre White and John Burton Race, opened his first nature-inspired restaurant L’Enclume in Cartmel, a village on the southern edge of England’s Lake District.

[caption id="attachment_175926" align="alignnone" width="1586"] Chef Simon Rogan at Our Farm[/caption]

Grounded in his enthusiasm for sourcing from the natural world, Rogan found that farming and foraging ingredients of the highest quality meant doing so organically and locally. And there’s nothing quite as local as your own 5-hectare organic farm nearby. Named Our Farm, it continues to supply Rogan’s restaurants with organic produce – including herbs, vegetables, flowers and fruits – which he incorporates into his constantly changing seasonal menus. Soon enough, his forward-thinking, sometimes unusual but always natural, British cuisine earned him accolades, including two Michelin stars and five AA Rosettes.

Thereafter, Rogan embarked on several other independent ventures. Opened in 2008, the informal restaurant and bar Rogan & Co, which is just a stone’s throw from L’Enclume, was also awarded a Michelin star. And then there’s Roganic, a pop-up-turned-restaurant located just north of London’s Oxford Street. Reflecting similar elements and thought processes, Roganic is an evolution of L’Enclume that opened in 2016 and, since 2017, runs alongside Aulis London, a development kitchen and chef’s table that his team uses to experiment and get creative with new dishes. Fast-forward to this year, and two of those concepts have since launched in Hong Kong, with Roganic and Aulis opening a month apart earlier this year.

[caption id="attachment_176093" align="alignnone" width="1570"] Beef, oyster and seaweed custard[/caption]

A meal at Roganic comprises long or short tasting menus of 10 to 16 courses of small plates and bites. In short, it’s a showcase of nature’s best, cooked, prepared and presented in a fresh and evocative way. Rogan himself describes it as “ingredient-led, naturally based cuisine focusing on flavours that are harmonious and balanced with a strong message of seasonality and bio diversity”.

It all sounds very technical and biodynamic, but boils down to his brilliance in simple enhancement – a dying art of kitchen sorcery in today’s over-elaborate culinary culture. At Roganic, no camouflage, cover-ups or overcompensation are needed. Instead, beauty is found in wholesome and unrefined ingredients, heightened in flavour by skill and technique alone. His tendency to lean towards pickling or fermenting, compressing or intensifying, is juxtaposed with natural sweetness and delicacy, displaying his innate ability to strike a balance between the two.

[caption id="attachment_175921" align="alignnone" width="1409"] Fresh produce come directly from Our Farm[/caption]

“Flavour is everything,” says Rogan, “and to achieve this you need to have an uncompromising approach to ingredient collection and production – and the stories behind them.” Of course, presentation and style are key too, and his modern approach is colourful yet clean and unfussy. “I’m a firm believer in restraint and letting the flavours of these amazing ingredients speak for themselves,” he adds.

As Rogan selects ingredients as fresh and as local as he can get them, the major difference between his London and Hong Kong outposts is in the produce he uses. In London, it goes without saying that the freshest produce comes from his own farm, but as he doesn’t have one here he instead picks the best ingredients he can find from local organic farmers.

“Before opening Roganic Hong Kong, we spent a lot of time researching organic farms in the area – in the New Territories specifically,” he says. “We’re now working with some incredible suppliers, but the produce can differ from what’s available in England. To combat this, we adapt each dish to suit seasonality and availability.”

[caption id="attachment_176089" align="alignnone" width="1251"] The Evogro at Roganic Hong Kong[/caption]

As for producing it himself, Rogan does so with Evogro; an indoor plant-growing system. If you visit Roganic Hong Kong, you’ll notice the smart boxes or farms on-site, drenched in red and blue LED lighting to promote growth, as well as hydroponics and video monitoring for ingredients such as microgreens and herbs. This season, he tells us, the very best ingredients he’s sourced in Hong Kong are fresh turnips, gem lettuce, amaranth greens and sweetcorn, whereas in London the finest beetroot, cabbages, tomatoes and nasturtiums are available.

A seasonal highlight of his current Hong Kong menu is a dish of leek, turnip and yellow chicken – the breast of the latter is cooked to tender and moist perfection before being paired with a terrine, cooked-down leek and an earthy turnip purée. Berkswell pudding – a savoury English bread- and-butter pud – is an easy favourite, too. Bouncy and comforting, it’s served with sweet birch-sap syrup and generously topped with finely grated aged Berkswell cheese.

[caption id="attachment_175927" align="alignnone" width="1235"] Sweetcorn tart[/caption]

Over in London, a seasonal showcase makes use of Cornish duck breast and charred cabbage brightened by a vibrant beetroot sauce. The sweetcorn tart – crisp pastry filled with creamy, smoked-eel emulsion and topped with barbecued and lightly pickled sweetcorn – is notable too.

Having visited both outposts within the space of two weeks, I can clearly see why Roganic works so well in London and Hong Kong. In both, the hushed tones of a high-end establishment are non-existent – and by “high- end”, I mean the quality of food, not the price. The cuisine feels real, for want of a better word, and there’s a sincerity in Rogan’s resolve to show you the food he knows and loves. Ultimately, his desire to reemphasise the connection between food and nature doesn’t just come to life in all the dishes he creates – it succeeds spectacularly.

The post Getting to The Root of Roganic Chef Simon Rogan’s Culinary Consciousness appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

A look into the city’s first chef’s table and development kitchen, now open in Causeway Bay.

The post Acclaimed British Chef Simon Rogan Brings Aulis to Hong Kong appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

For the fourth year, L'Enclume, a farm-to-table restaurant set in the bucolic English countryside, has been named the best dining destination in the UK.

The post Best Restaurant in the UK Revealed appeared first on LUXUO.

Vegetables gain favour among chefs and diners.

The post Why going meatless could be the next new food trend appeared first on The Peak Magazine.

Vegetables gain favour among chefs and diners.

For more stories like this, visit www.thepeakmagazine.com.sg.