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Lisa Cam

With a career spanning almost five decades, chef Hugo Leung Man-to, popularly known as To To, is a celebrity chef who has operated Tai Wing Wah Restaurant in Hong Kong’s Yuen Long area since 1975.
The restaurant specialises in “walled village cuisine” – a rustic, communal style of Hakka and indigenous Cantonese cooking defined by hearty, meat-heavy comfort foods native to Hong Kong’s New Territories. On August 3, it will be recognised by the record-certification platform Asia Records as the walled village cuisine restaurant most consecutively recognised by the Michelin Guide.
Leung is also known for his TVB show Gourmet Secret Agent, from which he gained the moniker “Gourmet God”.
“I did that show because the executives at TVB came to my restaurant, liked my food and asked if I wanted to be in a show,” he recalls. “I decided I wanted to donate the proceeds to charity, so I took part.”
Leung played a big part in the production of the show, which featured hidden-gem restaurants in the second- and third-tier cities of China, and helped the team gain access to farms showcasing unique ingredients.
“A lot of these restaurants and suppliers took part in the show because of me,” Leung explains. “I owed so many personal favours to friends and suppliers after the show, as many of them agreed to be featured because of my relationship with them.”

Many of these relationships were built over decades of trust and business dealings, with Leung starting out as an apprentice chef in the 1960s.
“I sought out my master, Cheung Wing, when I was 18,” Leung says. “Back then, we really had a tea ceremony and had to kneel in front of our master to become a proper apprentice.”
According to Leung, there were many rules to abide by when you worked under an established master.
“Taking care of our master’s daily routine was every disciple’s job; we’d have to wash his uniform and underwear, sharpen his knives, clean his wok and everything else you can think of.”
Life as an apprentice was tough. There was only one day a month of leave from work, and Leung recalls that it was the only time they could fix things like their wooden kitchen clogs or go home to see family.
Disciples also had to contribute a small amount of their income each month to the master.
“We didn’t have insurance back then, so this was if there was an emergency among us disciples or if one of us needed a loan or advance from the master. It had to be justified, of course.”

If these emergency funds were not used, Leung says his master would return the money around Chinese New Year in the form of gold jewellery.
“My master is considered a good master with a solid reputation. If you had a bad master, things could be disastrous,” Leung says.
Bad masters viewed their disciples as their cash cows, he says. With masters in charge of their disciples’ livelihoods and day-to-day living, those situations were ripe for abuse.
“Some senior chefs might have bad habits like gambling or drinking, and they would take their apprentices’ pay, sometimes even extort them,” Leung says.
There were other rules to follow when you were under the guidance of a master, according to Leung. If guests or clients gave them a red packet for recognition, they could not keep the money for themselves. Since what was served to the client was a team effort, the money must go back to the master and be redistributed among the disciples, as it would be unfair to the younger or less popular people on the team.
A master with a good reputation means many opportunities for a chef’s future. “People would have confidence in you for catering projects and would be more willing to take you on for jobs.”

That was how Leung started his flagship restaurant, Tai Wing Wah, in 1975, after he finished his apprenticeship with master Cheung.
Commenting on the trust one must garner for consistency, Leung says, “We didn’t have personal credit scores or electronic payments or anything like that when I started; we only had our reputation and our word.”


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Food and Drinks

Celebrity chef Hugo Leung, aka To To, on the road to becoming a ‘Gourmet God’

Hugo Leung (left) at his Tai Wing Wah Restaurant in Yuen Long, Hong Kong, in 2007. He shares his journey from chef apprentice to celebrity. Photo: Dickson Lee

Leung with Jayson Tang Ka-ho (left), executive Chinese chef of the JW Marriott Hotel Hong Kong, at the Man Ho Chinese Restaurant in Admiralty in June 2026. Photo: Dickson Lee

(Clockwise from top left) Stir-fried vermicelli with egg, beansprouts and crabmeat; barbecue pork; and minced pork steamed with pumpkin at Tai Wing Wah Restaurant in Yuen Long. Photo: Martin Chan

Chicken in five flavours at Tai Wing Wah Restaurant. Photo: Rebecca Tsui

Where a German chef in Hong Kong eats ‘no-nonsense’ Cantonese, Southeast Asian and French

Clay pot rice at Lai’s Kitchen in Wan Chai, where Peter Find of Hong Kong-based German restaurant Heimat goes for Cantonese food with “a great vibe and energy”. Find also shares where he goes in the city for Southeast Asian brunch with free-flow appetisers, fishball noodle soup and more. Photo: Michelin Guide

Beef brisket noodles at Chung’s Dai Pai Dong in Shau Kei Wan. Photo: Instagram/dai_pai_dong_

Peter Find is the chef-owner of Heimat. Photo: Peter Find

Fishball and fishcake noodles at Ha Ming Kee in Fortress Hill. Photo: Jonathan Wong

A Southeast Asian noodle dish at Voon, in Kennedy Town. Photo: Voon

Here Hai in Bangkok is famous for its omelette stuffed with big chunks of crab. Photo: Instagram/herehaifoods

Vintage cookbooks trace Hong Kong’s food heritage from Hakka to haute in new exhibition

A copy of Lisa Yam’s World, a Hong Kong cooking magazine popular in the 1980s and 1990s, features in “Treasured Recipes”, an exhibition at PMQ Taste Library that traces Hong Kong’s rich culinary heritage through food-themed literature. Photo: PMQ Taste Library

An issue from Chan Wing’s 30 Years in the Kitchen series features at the exhibition. Photo: PMQ Taste Library

Michael Lui is the food writer behind “Treasured Recipes”, the inaugural exhibition of PMQ Taste Library’s new Guest Curator programme. Photo: PMQ Taste Library

A photograph in the exhibition dating from the 1960s shows Fung Shing Restaurant founder Tam Kwok-wing being interviewed by a Japanese TV channel. Photo: PMQ Taste Library

Issues from The Food World magazine series reveal the decorating and interior design styles prevalent in Hong Kong in the mid-to-late 20th century. Photo: PMQ Taste Library

A photo of a Hakka woman using chopsticks to place white wood ear fungus into a large glass jar features at the exhibition. Photo: PMQ Taste Library

Japanese sushi master Nobu Matsuhisa’s Nobu the Cookbook is one of the books by renowned international chefs to feature at the exhibition. Photo: PMQ Taste Library

ArChan Chan of Ho Lee Fook (left) and Peter Pang of Big JJ Seafood Hotpot stand outside their respective restaurants in Central, Hong Kong. Photo: Edmond So

‘Healthier than butter’ lard is back as Hong Kong chefs celebrate rendered pork fat

Tor dei char siu with lard rice at the Man Ho Chinese Restaurant in Hong Kong. Lard, or pork fat, has a bad reputation but it is making a comeback on dining tables. Photo: Dickson Lee

Jayson Tang (left), the executive Chinese chef of JW Marriott Hotel Hong Kong, with Hugo Leung at the Man Ho Chinese Restaurant in Admiralty. Photo: Dickson Lee

Tor dei char siu with lard rice is one of the nostalgic dishes at the Man Ho Chinese Restaurant at JW Marriott Hong Kong. Photo: Dickson Lee

Lard rice, served with a topping of cracklings and marinated pork belly, at Tim Ho Wan. Photo: Tim Ho Wan

Bread served with lardo battuto at Dieci. Photo: Dieci

Hong Kong’s dai pai dong street-food stalls go upscale. Can they recreate the same magic?

 Typhoon Shelter Wok‑Fried Lobster (centre) and other dishes on the Hong Kong Sizzle menu at The Lounge. Photo: Four Seasons Hong Kong

A chef at The Lounge at Four Seasons Hong Kong cooks an item from executive chef Maxime Luvara’s Hong Kong Sizzle menu, which pays homage to Cantonese dai pai dong-style cuisine. Photo: The Lounge @ Four Seasons

ArChan Chan, head chef of Hong Kong Cantonese restaurants Ho Lee Fook and Peng Leng Jeng, says dai pai dong are “the heartbeat of Hong Kong dining culture”. Photo Jocelyn Tam

A selection of stir-fried dishes at Peng Leng Jeng, a dai pai dong-inspired restaurant in Hong Kong. Photo: Peng Leng Jeng

Typhoon shelter wok‑fried lobster (centre) from the Hong Kong Sizzle menu at The Lounge at Four Seasons Hong Kong. Photo: Four Seasons Hong Kong

(Clockwise, from top) Typhoon shelter-style deep-fried whole mantis shrimp, fried noodles with shredded cabbage and pork lard in soy sauce, and stir-fried fish maw with shrimp paste. Photos: Jing @WellWellWell

Wu Yuk-ming, head of business at Maxim’s Caterers, says Jing @WellWellWell is “preserving the dai pai dong logic of heat and craft and then expressing it through a more structured, high-end dining system”. Photo: Jing @WellWellWell

Lifestyle

Food & Drink

Leung wasn’t always a ‘Gourmet God’ – as an apprentice, he was expected to clean woks, sharpen knives and even wash his master’s underwear


Leung wasn’t always a ‘Gourmet God’ – as an apprentice, he was expected to clean woks, sharpen knives and even wash his master’s underwear.


Celebrity chef Hugo Leung, aka To To, on the road to becoming a ‘Gourmet God’

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Leung wasn’t always a ‘Gourmet God’ – as an apprentice, he was expected to clean woks, sharpen knives and even wash his master’s underwear

Leung wasn’t always a ‘Gourmet God’ – as an apprentice, he was expected to clean woks, sharpen knives and even wash his master’s underwear