Profile | Chinese-Canadian chef wows Dubai with ‘third culture’ cooking inspired by his journey

At Jun’s in Dubai, Kelvin Cheung’s ‘borderless’ cooking draws on influences from the Philippines to India for ‘completely original’ dishes

Reading Time:5 minutes

Kelvin Cheung with his son at Jun’s. The Michelin-listed Dubai restaurant is impressing critics with its comfort food that shows influences of different Asian cuisines. Photo: Jun’s

Published: 7:15am, 21 Mar 2025Updated: 10:50am, 21 Mar 2025

At Jun’s, which opened in Dubai in the summer of 2022, chef-partner Kelvin Cheung has been consistently dazzling diners with cooking that weaves various Asian influences into every dish.

This year, not even three years after opening, the restaurant jumped 14 spots to No. 7 on the Middle East & North Africa’s (Mena) 50 Best Restaurants list.

Diners are drawn to Cheung’s “borderless” approach – for which he seeks to capture the soul of Chinese flavours without boxing himself in. Dig further into the menu at Jun’s and you will encounter North American, Indian and Filipino influences.

Cheung grew up in a traditional Chinese household in Toronto, Canada and studied in Chicago. Following that, he trained in France and headed restaurants in North America and India before making his big move to Dubai to open Jun’s.

Kelvin Cheung has been dazzling diners at Jun’s with his “borderless” approach to cooking. Photo: Jun’s

The philosophy of the restaurant – which he named after his son Bodhi (his Chinese name is Jun) – is what Cheung describes as “third-culture cooking”, a culmination of all his globetrotting adventures.

“It isn’t Chinese, pan-Asian or fusion. It’s basically my life journey [as] a Chinese-born Canadian who experienced identity conflict, caught between different cultural expectations and social norms, but has now embraced his heritage fully.”