Coffee is an integral part of our daily lives, but apart from the occasional caffeinated pastry or decadent affogato, this ubiquitous ingredient hardly ever features in our food. Nespresso Gourmet Weeks is hoping to change that.
First launched in 2012, the initiative has challenged some of the world s top chefs in Switzerland, Austria and Russia to use coffee as a spice to flavour their culinary creations, in the process turning diners preconceived notions of coffee on their head.
Now, Nespresso Gourmet Weeks has touched down in Hong Kong for the first time, demonstrating the full culinary range of Nespresso Professional s Origins collection. To this end, Nespresso has partnered with eight of the city s leading chefs to showcase the possibilities of coffee-forward fine dining, across everything from Nordic-Japanese and Indian cooking, to contemporary Latin American and French-Cantonese.
Photograph: Courtesy Chaat
Eight of Hong Kong’s top Indian chefs come together to cook for one epic charity dinner at Chaat
The dinner will take place on June 7 with 100 percent of proceeds going towards Covid-19 relief efforts in India
By
Advertising
The catastrophic second wave of Covid-19 in India has been devastating, to say the least. India is at the epicentre of the pandemic with hospitals and health services struggling to deal with the terrifying amount of cases. Many countries and individuals, including Indians abroad, are doing what they can to help – even as they deal with the emotional impact of the situation. In Hong Kong, eight of the city’s top Indian chefs are joining forces to do just that and ‘Cook for India’.
Regional Chinese fine diner MIÁN opens at The Murray Hong Kong
Not so much a “new menu” as it is a full-blown restaurant opening, MIÁN unveiled its gilded setting to local diners earlier this month. Situated off of the main annex at The Murray Hong Kong, the restaurant replaces the hotel’s previous Chinese fine diner, Guo Fu Lou; and managed in partnership with the same group behind Sushi Ima and Toriten.
In keeping with the hotel’s storied, culturally significant location, diners can expect flavours extracted from the ‘8 major Chinese cuisines’, as cooked by Sichuanese veteran Ronald Shao. Despite an extensive menu of home-style Cantonese favourites not to mention a daily yumcha service Shao’s affinity for the broad spectra of Chinese chilli peppers comes across in many of MIÁN’s signature dishes. Highlights include the much-photographed poached tiger grouper (HK$1,288); chilled mantis shrimp served with torched green chilli (HK$488); and the ubiquitous
In Macau, fine dining lovers looking for a plant-based approach will adore
Yí’s Vegetarian Tasting Menu. The regional Chinese restaurant, located in Morpheus at City of Dreams, only offers ten-course seasonal degustation menus, and although changing frequently, the culinary delights included on recent vegetarian versions include gluten puff tartelette with seaweed caviar, bird’s nest with white fungus and bamboo pith, and roasted eggplant with yellow bean paste.
Singapore
Singapore has a reasonable range of vegan and vegetarian restaurants, but when it comes to fine dining, head to
Alma by Juan Amador where chef Haikal Johari brings Asian influences, particularly from Japan, to his modern-European dishes. With a three-, four- or five-course vegetarian menu available at lunchtime, Johari also offers vegetarian options for his 5 Act Découverte menu, as well as his 7 Act Adventure menu. The latter focuses on a cornucopia of enticing Japanese vegetal delights, from Tochigo st