Spanish chef on why his new Hong Kong restaurant isn’t ‘another tapas bar’

It is morning when we meet Edgard Sanuy, who is remarkably awake and alert for a chef with a new baby at home. “We also have a two-year-old,” he says. “My wife has to spend time with the little one so I deal more with the older one who is suddenly a little jealous. Now she has to share daddy’s attention and doesn’t understand why mama cannot be with her all the time.” His second daughter arrived in September while he was building his third Spanish restaurant. But Sanuy remains calm in the face of it all, no matter how chaotic the kitchen gets. Aire, which has just opened, is the Spaniard’s most ambitious project to date. It follows the success of Pica Pica, in Hong Kong’s Sheung Wan neighbourhood, and Barbar, in Wan Chai – both a part of Hong Kong restaurant group Epicurean. On the third floor of high-end mall Lee Garden One in Causeway Bay, Aire covers more than 2,000 sq ft (190 square metres) including an outdoor terrace. It is a big gamble. At Aire, Sanuy offers the same kinds of classic tapas and paellas as at his other restaurants, but with more elaborate and lavish main courses. He has installed a Basque-style parrilla grill to smoke ingredients and cook chicken, fish, and Galician dry-aged beef from northern Spain. Although the restaurant is still in its soft-opening phase, Sanuy says it has been filling up daily so far. “The location came first,” he says. “We thought, if we come here, we have to offer something more. We didn’t see the need for just another tapas bar. So we decided to add a charcoal grill. It gives us a new layer of opportunities. We can add more things while keeping all the value tapas items.” Sanuy likens Aire to a Chinese restaurant that does both dim sum and Peking duck. “We’re making all the things in Spain that people like available in one space. The versatility of the venue means we can also do more events. We get many requests for a Spanish party but there isn’t room in our other venues,” he says. Over the years, Sanuy has become the torch-bearer for Spanish cuisine in Hong Kong. Despite not being a molecular-minded disrupter or a Michelin-star fine-dining maestro, the Catalan is turning Hongkongers on to simple but refined tapas and classic Iberian flavours. “These are concepts I like, from places in Spain I would go, and food I would eat,” he says. I’m bringing a part of Spain to Hong Kong. This gives me happiness Edgard Sanuy Sanuy did not always handle success as well as he does today. In 2017, while working for Hong Kong hospitality group Maximal Concepts, he says he overworked himself to the point of burnout and started having panic attacks in the kitchen. “In the middle of a service, suddenly it felt like I had a knife in my chest,” he recalls. “I was actually enjoying life before then. We opened [Chinese restaurant] Mott 32, [cocktail bar] Stockton and [beachside barbecue spot] Limewood one after another. Everything was amazing, then suddenly, it was like I was having a heart attack. “Doctors did all the tests and found nothing. In the end, a psychologist said I was having a mental breakdown. I needed to slow down. No one can sleep less than five hours a night for three years.” He moved from Hong Kong to Manila, in the Philippines, for a year. The time away gave Sanuy perspective and made him realise the problem was not the industry, but his hectic lifestyle. “I look at my parents and grandparents living in a small town. They come home every night and have their base. Now, people travel, stay out a very long time, add in social media, everything moves fast. We get out of our comfort zone. That’s what happened to me. “Now I have my family, my wife, my daughters, and that brings me stability and calm. Spending a Sunday at home, going for a walk, it relieves all my stress.” Aire is Sanuy’s biggest restaurant yet, but his next challenge will be even more significant. He is taking over the former Wan Chai location of Spanish restaurant 22 Ships – originally opened by British chef Jason Atherton in 2012. Sanuy’s plan is to create a bar and restaurant serving authentic pintxos – northern Spanish-style tapas. “I think what Atherton did at 22 Ships, I wouldn’t have been able to do,” Sanuy says. “How they designed the space technically was very well done and impressive. They have a lot of knowledge, they know Spanish food and combined it all. They weren’t beholden to tapas clichés. “They didn’t care how a croquette has to be. They have a dish called Spanish breakfast. No one ever has that for breakfast in Spain, but it was delicious. As a Spaniard, I respect them a lot.” But Sanuy is keen to bring a new facet of Spanish cooking to the space. “Since the kitchen is small, I thought of a pintxos bar. They offer small bites, usually on bread, to go with drinks. They are done fresh then put on the bar. “In San Sebastian [in northern Spain’s Basque country], you might have pintxos sitting there for half an hour. People understand it will not be flaming hot.” It does not hurt that his popular tapas restaurant Barbar is just across the street. The hope is that the pintxos concept will absorb some of the existing restaurant’s overflow of customers. With his new-found work-life balance, Sanuy is comfortable being a chef who cooks rather than a celebrity. “I feel very proud to be able to do Spanish food with these different approaches,” he says. “But it took me a while to understand that for most people, I am irrelevant to their experience. “I don’t think people care about me when they go to Pica Pica or Aire. The moment I realised that, I removed a big part of my ego. I started giving people what they wanted. “I now think about things like legacy. The way I think now is, even if I’m gone, these restaurants stay. I think I’m doing something for Hong Kong. “Am I showing my most creative self in the cuisine? No, but I’m more concerned about making a good product at a good price point, and making sure people like it. I do believe I’m bringing a part of Spain to Hong Kong. This gives me happiness.”

Spanish chef on why his new Hong Kong restaurant isn’t ‘another tapas bar’

Edgard Sanuy talks about bringing Basque grill cooking to Hong Kong at Aire, how being a family man helps him and focusing on his legacy