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Celebrity Cuisine

We’ve long wanted to try Celebrity Cuisine, a Michelin-starred Cantonese restaurant tucked away in Central. So, we jumped at the chance when it came. Helmed by leading chef and restaurateur Cheng Kam Fu, who learned his culinary skills as a private chef to one of Hong Kong’s tycoons, the restaurant has garnered widespread accolades for its innovative Cantonese dishes.

The restaurant is well appointed and designed for privacy and comfort, with friendly and attentive service. Chef Fu is highly selective in his ingredients and in the way the dishes are prepared, personally picking out meats and produce from wet markets and insisting on how they are sliced or cut.

The set menu has two options: a basic set for $488 per person, and a more elaborate version for $688 per person. Both, we thought, are quite reasonably priced considered the quality of the ingredients served. For our tasting, we chose the higher-priced one, of course.

We started with Double-boiled Pig Lungs and Almond Soup. Don’t let the name put you off – that soup is delicious and tastes velvety smooth and yummy. Bird’s Nest Stuffed in Chicken Wing is next, which is one of Chef Fu’s specialties. Bird’s nest is an expensive ingredient highly prized by the Chinese for its health benefits. For this dish, a generous portion of bird’s nest is stuffed into a large chicken wing, which then is seasoned and deep fried. The chicken wing is crispy, yet the bird’s nest retains its moisture and flavour.

Chef Fu was kind enough to showcase another of his signature dishes not in the set menu – Sautéed Pig’s Tripe with Bitter Melon ($280). We were told only the tip of each pig’s tripe is used for this dish, so a few pigs are sacrificed for this delicacy – and the meat taste crunchily chewy, which is quite a feat.

Lobster with Supreme Broth was next – succulent lobster meat still in the shell seasoned with sweetly flavoured broth, and baked. That was followed by Abalone with Goose’s Web. This is a real treat for abalone connoisseurs; the dried abalone comes from Japan, which generally produces the finest abalone for gourmet consumption. We were impressed by the high quality of the ingredients used.

Our last main was Steamed Giant Grouper Home Cooking Style, which is always the zenith of a Cantonese meal – tender but firm meat steamed just right with the sauce adding the perfect flavour.

Chef Fu treated us to another signature dish, the classic Sweet and Sour Pork ($180), which we consider one of the best Sweet and Sour Pork dish in the city – the secret lies in the pork being sliced rather than cubed, coated with succulent batter, and perfectly fried.

We wrapped up our meal with Special Fried Rice, which is exquisitely fried, and the Red Dates Tea with De-yolked Egg and Root of Silvereed Cinquefoil, by which time we were completely sated.

Our visit to Celebrity Cuisine fully lived up to our expectation of a truly special gourmet meal. Make it yours as well – and be sure to book in advance.

Celebrity Cuisine

1/F, Lan Kwai Fong Hotel, 3 Kau U Fong, Central; 3650 0066

(Edited on 6 Jun 2018)