Chef ArChan Chan’s return to Hong Kong was never meant to be a statement. After more than a decade working abroad—in Melbourne and Singapore—she came back to lead the kitchen at Ho Lee Fook, the beloved modern Cantonese spot tucked in the slopes of SoHo.

What she brought with her wasn’t just technique. It was patience.

Her take on sweet and sour pork says everything. The dish is one of the city’s most familiar signatures—but Chan waited a long time before putting it on the menu. “It’s been done so many times. We didn’t want to do it unless we could do it differently,” she says.

Her version—Sweet & Sour Kurobuta Pork with Perfume Lemon—is light, balanced, and unexpectedly elegant. The crisp Kurobuta is glazed in a citrus-bright sauce made with seasonal fruit, onion, chillies, and rare perfume lemon, topped with crispy tea leaves for texture. It’s not showy, but it lingers.

Chan didn’t grow up cooking dim sum, nor did she know how to wield a wok in her early days. But today, she’s quietly mastered both. One of her proudest dishes? The Shredded Daikon Puff—a notoriously delicate pastry she once dreamed of learning before she died. Now, it’s hers. “That moment I got it right… I was really happy,” she says, smiling.

Her menu reflects that same quiet satisfaction: Cantonese food with deep respect, trimmed of excess, and cooked with conviction.

Photo source: Ho Lee Fook

Just three years ago, Theign Phan wasn’t cooking Sichuan food at all.

Born and raised in Singapore, she started her professional life in corporate communications before switching careers entirely—training at Le Cordon Bleu in Sydney, then working in French and Vietnamese kitchens. Sichuan wasn’t in the plan. But sometimes, the plan changes.

Now, as executive chef of Grand Majestic Sichuan in Alexandra House, she leads one of the city’s most opulent Chinese restaurants with elegance, restraint, and the occasional jolt of heat.

Her signature dish—Pan-Seared Eastern Star Grouper with Pixian Chili Bean Paste—is a love letter to childhood dinners in Singapore. “There was a Sichuan-Cantonese restaurant my family always went to,” she says. “That dish brings it back.” The crisp skin of the grouper plays against the rich, fermented depth of the doubanjiang sauce—a perfect balance of memory and modern technique.

Taking over the kitchen was nerve-wracking, she admits. But with the support of her team, and an extraordinary opportunity to travel with British Sichuan expert Fuchsia Dunlop to Chengdu and Chongqing—where they explored the cuisine’s 27 foundational flavour profiles—Phan’s confidence grew. “I came in as an outsider,” she says. “But now I feel like I’m part of this conversation.”

And what she’s saying is bold, precise, and entirely her own.

For Jack Lam, cooking Hokkien food wasn’t a trend—it was a return.

Now executive chef at Ming Pavilion at Island Shangri-La, Lam has spent more than 20 years cooking Chinese cuisine at the highest levels, mostly in the Cantonese tradition. But his roots run deeper. Raised in North Point, a neighbourhood long known as “Little Fujian,” Lam grew up surrounded by the people, language, and flavours of the Fujianese community.

So when the opportunity came to open a restaurant devoted to Hokkien cuisine—the first of its kind in Hong Kong’s luxury dining scene—he didn’t hesitate. But he didn’t copy either.

“I knew what it meant to me,” he says. “But I had to understand what it could be for others.”

One dish that captures that spirit is his refined version of Steamed Mud Crab with Glutinous Rice, a celebratory dish often served at Hokkien weddings. Lam uses Vietnamese crab for its rich roe, and steams it atop seasoned sticky rice that absorbs every drop of savoury essence. The result is comforting, fragrant, and deeply rooted—but polished.

Across his menu, Lam also nods to the broader Hokkien diaspora, incorporating touches of Southeast Asian spice and warmth—echoes of Taiwan, Malaysia, and beyond—while keeping a Hong Kong sense of precision intact.

In his hands, Hokkien cuisine isn’t a throwback. It’s a living memory, told with elegance.