Profile | Rising Hong Kong chef in France hungers for greatness after a major competition win
Jesse Summer Wong, recent winner of a French pâté en croûte contest, plans to open a fine-dining French restaurant with flavours of home
It is a cloudy winter’s day in Lyon, France’s culinary capital, and Hong Kong chef Jesse Summer Wong Hin-hang is showing me around the city’s famed culinary and hospitality school, Institut Lyfe.
“This is where the French students smoke before and after class, but I don’t partake because it messes with your palate,” Wong says, nodding towards a group of teenagers smoking as we walk past the school grounds.
At 27, Wong is a few years older than his French classmates, who are mostly fresh out of secondary school. He has also already had experience running his own restaurant, a French-Cantonese fusion fine-dining spot called L’Onyx XV, which he opened in 2021 in Hong Kong’s Kennedy Town neighbourhood – though thanks to Covid-19, it was a short-lived venture.
In fact, L’Onyx XV was where he met one of his sponsors – a repeat customer who saw potential in Wong’s cooking and proposed that he pursue formal culinary training to further his talent.
“[The sponsor] said to me, ‘You’re 23 years old and you cook French cuisine, but you’ve never been to France. You don’t speak French nor do you understand the culture or tradition,’” Wong says.
“And so he made me a proposal and said, ‘Why don’t I pay for your tuition fee, your expenses, housing, dining – everything. You don’t have to pay me back. Just go, benefit and learn as much as possible. When you become successful, do the same for the younger generation and pass on the spirit.’ That was the deal.”