All About Chef Tong

Tong Chee Hwee's career began in 1963 at the Happy Valley restaurant in Singapore, where he was third fryer. By 1995 he was fryer chef at the Ritz Carlton in Singapore, when he was spotted by the restaurateur Alan Yau, who persuaded him to become head chef at London's Hakkasan. Within a year it won a Michelin star, the first to be awarded to a Chinese restaurant in the UK. After winning a Tio Pepe ITV Restaurant Award and London Chef of the Year, he became executive head chef for the Hakkasan group in 2010. Having recently left the Hakkasan Group to pursue new projects, Chef Tong has also started his own food consulting business.

Cooking Style

“I always follow the most traditional and authentic flavours possible when I’m cooking a particular dish. However when I’m cooking I also trying to find a modern way to execute and present a dish. For example, with the famous pork dish Dongpo Pork Belly, the traditional way requires 4 hours of slow cooking in a clay pot. When I’m cooking the Dongpo Pork I choose to use the water bath technology, which involves bathing the pork belly in 58◦C for 16 hours instead of cooking it in the pot. The result is that the pork belly maintains its authentic flavour while still holding the essence inside the meat. Also traditional Chinese cooking includes using a huge amount of oil, but in the modern culture this is not considered healthy, so for a healthy diet I usually try to find a way to use less oil when cooking a dish.”