Hong Kong born Chef David Lai boasts an impressive culinary career of more than 20 years, honing his skill under great mentors such as Alain Ducasse and working his way up the culinary ladder.
Named “Chef of the Year” in 2012 by Time Out Hong Kong, David’s homespun career has seen him open three successful Michelin-listed restaurants in Hong Kong including On Lot 10 and Neighbourhood.
David Lai
David’s love for cooking began in San Francisco’s Bay area while working in a restaurant to help support his art history and fine arts degree at Berkley University. His artistic flair made for a natural transition into the culinary world where he enjoyed the creativity and working with his hands.
Growing up in Hong Kong, David loved going to markets with his family and began to understand and appreciate eating local at a young age. David carries this understanding and deep respect for the city’s hardworking suppliers with him to Fish School, where he uses local ingredients as frequently as possible to create a menu of innovative, fresh dishes.
1. What is your philosophy when it comes to food?
Good food is powerful. It goes well beyond what’s on the plate and the technicalities. I think we can all recall with great specificity the memorable meals we’ve had in our life – the location, the company, the occasion, the flavour and texture, etc.
For me one such moment was during my student days in San Francisco. On our tiny budgets me and a bunch of school friends tried to get a glimpse of the good life and went to dinner at the bar of Wolfgang Puck’s then newly opened Postrio. The daily special was a sandwich of grilled local wild king salmon belly. It was crispy smoky charred on the outside and moist and melting inside. It was the one of the best things I’ve ever eaten and it might have been one of the things that tempted me into cooking. It remains an indelible memory 25 years later. As a chef, raw emotion is much more important than cold intellect.
2. Name your most favourite dish on the menu? And why?
The raw crab with sea urchin is one of the few dishes that remains from our inaugural menu at Fish School, and it is still one of our most popular and successful dishes to date. The inspiration for the dish comes from the classic Chiu Chow dish of raw marinated crab. The original dish calls for whole raw crab marinated in a mixture of fish sauce, chili, herbs and spices. The problem with the dish is that very often the crab is not safe to eat raw and it is a hassle to eat because of the shell. What we’ve done at Fish School is take the meat out of the shell, marinated it, and then we deep freeze it for a week to make sure it is safe for raw consumption. We also mix sea urchin into the meat to mimic the richness of the crab roe. I think we came up with an elegant solution to make a good dish better and more accessible. A large part of cooking is about problem solving. That is what they mean by being creative.
3. Main considerations when it comes to choosing your ingredients?
Freshness, seasonality, quality and locality. The better the ingredients the more we can let them speak and less we have to dress them up. The best cooking is always clear, simple and effortless: not complicated, confused, and contrived.
4. How do you see the growing demands for sustainable produce affecting the food world?
Chefs have a very important role in driving the eating habits of the wider public. In general, economics dictates that produce becomes ever cheaper in both price and quality. It is up to discerning chefs to go against the grain to inform the public when too far is too far and to go back to ingredients where taste, quality, and nutrition are the premium. This is also true about sustainability and environmental impact. Chefs have an important role to be at the forefront of the conversation.
5. If you weren’t a chef, or in the food business, what would you be?
I enjoy working with my hands and I have a great capacity for solitude so if I weren’t a chef I would probably do well making furniture or jewellery.
6. Do you have a memorable food experience that impacted you as a child or young chef?
See question #1. Also, Berkeley is probably one of the most progressive food towns in America. Thanks to Alice Waters we have local farms and foragers from around. As a young person I was amazed to see amazing produce in all their glories in the local markets.
7. What do you enjoy most about being a chef?
Making other people happy. A close second is the connection to nature. Being a chef brings us closer to the source of our food and the rhythm of nature. What makes us human is knowing our place in nature and it is increasingly harder to do with all the distractions of modernity and urban life.
8. Other than creating good food, what are the most important qualities that make a successful chef?
Curiosity and empathy. Curiosity enables one to grow and learn; empathy because one is cooking for other people, not oneself.
9. If you had a choice of anything for your last meal, what would you choose to have?
It’s the same as what everyone else says: my mother’s cooking. It is in the end what we yearn for on most days of our lives.
10. Do you have any tips for budding chefs or restauranteurs?
Be yourself. Make and serve what you can eat yourself every day.
For the review on Fish School visit: savourblackbookasia.com/fish-school-hong-kong/
ADDRESS:
100 Third Street, Sai Ying Pun, Hong Kong
OPERATING HOURS:
Mon to Sun, 6:00 pm – 11:00 pm
RESERVATIONS: Recommended
PHONE: +852 2361 2966
EMAIL: ask@fishschool.hk
WEBSITE: http://www.fishschool.hk/