New Wave Chinese Restaurants: Our Latest Culinary Obsession
Tuesday, September 04 2018, 6.45pm - 9pm, at Asia House, 63 New Cavendish Street, London, W1G 7LP
A panel discussion with Jay Rayner, Alan Yau and Andy Kwok, chaired by Felicity Cloake
Part of the Lee Kum Kee Culinary Culture Series from the Oxford Cultural Collective, in partnership with Asia House Arts and Learning and PB Catering.
(note – this event is now sold out)
Forget traditional Cantonese dishes re-mastered to suit Western tastes. We are now enjoying specialities from all across China.
Our panellists will explore how recent changes in the Chinese restaurant scene are transforming our understanding and appreciation of China’s diverse culinary culture. They will reflect on the evolution of the Chinese restaurant sector in the UK and on our growing taste for authentic regional Chinese dishes. They will also consider how recent entrants and established players are satisfying the demands of increasingly well-informed customers.
This event includes a panel discussion for one hour, followed by a drinks and canapes reception. There is no charge to attend, but booking is essential. Follow this link to book your place.
Felicity Cloake is a freelance journalist and the award-winning author of the Guardian’s long-running How to Make the Perfect… and the New Statesman’s food columns, as well as four cookery books, Perfect, Perfect Host, Perfect Too and the Andre Simon-shortlisted A-Z of Eating. One More Croissant for the Road, a French culinary odyssey on two wheels, will be published by HarperCollins in June 2019.
Jay Rayner is an award-winning writer, journalist and broadcaster with a fine collection of floral shirts. He has written on everything from crime and politics, through cinema and theatre to the visual arts, but is best known as restaurant critic for the Observer. In the 2014 British Press Awards he was shortlisted for both Critic of the Year and Specialist Journalist of the Year. Somehow he has also found time to write four novels and three works of non-fiction. His latest full length book is A Greedy Man In A Hungry World: How (almost) everything you thought you knew about food is wrong. He chair’s BBC Radio 4’s The Kitchen Cabinet, and is a regular on British television, where he is familiar as a judge on Masterchef and, since 2009, as the resident food experts on The One Show. He tours Britain performing various one man shows, based on both Greedy Man, and his short book My Dining Hell, a collection of his most scathing restaurant reviews. He is a sometime jazz pianist and in 2012 formed the Jay Rayner Quartet with whom he regularly performs, whether you want him to or not.
Alan Yau OBE. In an age where reality show contestants launch chains of restaurants, the place of Alan Yau is clear. You’ve probably eaten in one of his many ground-breaking restaurant concepts – Hakkasan, Yautcha, Wagamama, Busaba, Princi, Park Chinois.
His CV details the achievements – the O.B.E, the Michelin stars, his place and date of birth. Whilst all that matters, it doesn’t explain his personal mission. Regardless of type of cuisine, price range or cultural location, all of the restaurants he has opened share a common dynamic. Every Alan Yau restaurant represents a distillation of his spirit and delivers authentic hospitality. This is quietly and deeply ingrained into the fabric and character of every restaurant.
Anyone seeking the thrill of novelty may be disappointed. There are restaurants that get more press attention. There are certainly restaurateurs hungrier for publicity. Yau’s restaurants offer a slower reveal. Their beauty lies in the shadows. These are restaurants with longevity. In a disposable age permanence has a rare beauty.
Alan’s most recent ventures are Madame Fan, a serene fine-dining restaurant in Singapore; and Soft Chow, an app that will enable users to discover the food and eating haunts of fellow ‘tastemakers’.
Andy Kwok is the Director of The Good Earth Group, a family owned restaurant business that has set the gold standard for Chinese food in London for over thirty years. Andy’s father, Holland Kwok, spent his entire career in the restaurant sector, so Andy has always been surrounded by Chinese food and the noise of busy kitchens. After a brief stint at Pret a Manger and Wagamama, he joined his father in 2002. At the helm he has grown the business to include four restaurants, an extensive delivery service and an events catering division. Good Earth’s evolution reflects the journey that Chinese food has taken in London, from tradition to contemporary interpretation.
This event includes a panel discussion for one hour, followed by a drinks and canapes reception. There is no charge to attend, but booking is essential. Follow this link to book your place.
Lee Kum Kee was founded by restaurateur, Mr Lee Kum Sheung, in 1888 at Nam Shui village in the Guangdong Province, South China. He was also the inventor of Oyster Sauce – one of the most commonly used sauces in Chinese restaurants and households across the world. It is the number one sauce brand in Hong Kong and also one of the largest and best known Chinese brands in the global Chinese market. Lee Kum Kee products are available in UK supermarkets and independent Asian stores nationwide.
With thanks to Lee Kum Kee, Asia House Arts and Learning and PB Catering.