Fish School to take Hong Kong-caught fish and cook them the French way
Yenn Wong of 208 Duecento Otto, 22 Ships and Aberdeen Street Social teams up with David Lai, French-trained chef-proprietor of On Lot 10 and Bistronomique, for Sai Ying Pun venture
Fish School, Yenn Wong’s newest venture, is only the latest in a series of restaurant venues that could best be described as eclectic.
The new Sai Ying Pun establishment is a collaboration with David Lai that will promote a menu of mostly locally caught fish cooked using French and international techniques. Lai is a chef and restaurateur known equally for his love of diving into local wet markets to buy fish and his dedication to French technique, as Hong Kong diners who’ve eaten at his restaurants On Lot 10, Neighbourhood and Bistronomique would know.
“I knew of David’s training under Alain Ducasse and his restaurant work, and his multicultural techniques intrigued me. I was waiting for the right creative collaboration to come along,” says Wong.
If the new partnership and restaurant share a characteristic with Wong’s past ventures, it is perhaps her willingness to be different.
Opia restaurant at Wong’s first hotel, a boutique operation in Causeway Bay then called Jia, featured the cooking of Australians Teage Ezard and Dane Clouston. The complicated fusion of Australian and Asian ingredients and cooking methods and Ezard’s imagination won many fans and also an SCMP restaurant of the year prize in 2006.
