A bevy of the city’s most fabulous ladies, who have all graced these pages from day one, put on some glamorous gowns and dazzling jewels to celebrate Prestige Hong Kong’s 100th issue

Audry Ai Morrow
“I was honoured to be in the first issue of Prestige Hong Kong. Congratulations on your 100th issue”
Yolanda Choy Tang
“I’ve enjoyed watching Prestige Hong Kong develop and grow into a major luxury title over the past eight years. The team has done outstanding work in one of the most competitive media markets in the world. Congratulations! And thank you for your support and friendship”
Tansy Tom
“I always enjoy working with Prestige Hong Kong and never doubt that the outcome will be stylish, fun and original. The magazine brings luxury and glamorous lifestyle to readers, and I am so privileged to be part of the 100th issue”
Reyna Harilela
“I’m very proud and honoured to be part of Prestige Hong Kong’s 100th issue. Thank you for delivering exciting covers of amazing stars – I love you, Prestige!”
Shirley Hiranand
“I feel like a proud mom, having witnessed Prestige Hong Kong’s birth in this city and watched it grow from strength to strength”
Christina Hellmann
“I am very grateful for Prestige Hong Kong’s continuous support and coverage of the Joshua Hellmann Foundation”
Wendy Puyat
“I worked with Prestige Hong Kong as a graphic designer during its launch. Back then, there was an atmosphere of nonstop fun and creative buzz between a small but dynamic team. The magazine’s new concept would bring together a mix of international and local personalities, cutting-edge editorial shoots and well-written lifestyle features. Today, as a contributor, I can’t believe it’s already the 100th issue. Congratulations for consistent high quality, Prestige. It’s been an honour!”
Victoria Tang
“I hope I look as good as Prestige Hong Kong when I’m 100!”
 
PHOTOGRAPHY / GORDON LUND AT RÖST PRODUCTION
CREATI VE DIRECTION / GORDON LAM
HAIR / RITZ LAM AT A TEN STUDIO
MAKE-UP / KATHY SUNG
STYLING ASSISTANT / ISABELLA LOK
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Beauty Gifts
 
Yves Saint Laurent Touche Éclat Signature Kit:
Banish all signs of darkness and fatigue this Christmas with YSL’s luxury beauty duo set, which includes the Touche Eclat No. 1, a beauty essential for any woman’s handbag. This set also includes the new Mascara Volume Effet Faux Cils Baby Doll, which magnifies your eyes with its intense colour pigment and lasts 24 hours.
 
Estée Lauder 2013 Zodiac Powder Compact Collection:
What’s your star sign? This Christmas, Estée Lauder comes back with another beautiful collection of zodiac-inspired compacts. Each unique compact comes adorned with a modern interpretation of each star sign, along with a fabulous Swarovski birthstone clasp. The golden compact contains a mirror, of course and a refillable translucent powder that’s bound to give skin a flawless finish. This little beauty comes in a soft velvet pouch and gift box, perfect for any astrology addict out there.
 
Ombres Matelassées de Chanel in Charming:
Getting glam this holiday is easy with Chanel’s newest make-up collection, the Nuit Infinie de Chanel Christmas 2013. A sure-fire crowd-pleaser is the limited-edition Ombres Matelassées eyeshadow palette in Charming, which consists of five silky shades stamped with Chanel’s iconic quilted motif, ideal for achieving sophisticated custom-blended combos throughout the season.
 

Gifts for the Home
 
Shanghai Tang Phoenix decorative plate & tea cup: 
The motif on Shanghai Tang’s Phoenix decorative plate and tea cup set represents strength and resilience as well as being a sign of good luck. The collection is made from fine bone china and features a beautifully accented gold trim. 
 
Jo Malone Christmas Home Collection:
What’s Christmas without Jo Malone? The Jo Malone London Christmas Home Collection has everything you need to leave any home beautifully styled and smelling great. The collection consists of an uplifting Lime Basil & Mandarin room spray, a rich Pomegranate Noir diffuser, a sensuous Scent Surround Sachet and a vibrant Blackberry & Bay home candle.
 
Nespresso Umilk Espresso Machine:
The Nespresso Umilk machine has a built-in milk-frother, which allows you to create mouth-watering cappuccinos and lattes. Its super elegant and easy design will have you making plenty of indulgent coffee creations in no time.
 

Gifts for Kids
 
Burberry Check Cashmere Teddy Bear:
In time for St Nick’s arrival, Burberry launches the Check Cashmere Teddy Bear, trimmed in soft suede and featuring moveable arms and legs. Each teddy is unique and made in England. Surprise your little one and leave this adorable bear under the tree.
 
Armani Junior Boys Sweater:
Keep your wee one warm this winter with Armani Junior’s designer duds. An essential piece to any little boy’s wardrobe, this long-sleeved sweatshirt features Armani’s signature eagle emblem on the front.
 
Gucci Microguccissima Leather Heart Kid’s Wristlet:
Add a little designer luxe to the fashionable girl’s closet with Gucci’s Microguccissima Leather Heart Kid Wristlet. This gorgeous accessory will keep any mini-me’s belongings safe and fashionably on her wrist at all times. 
 
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Bali sceptic CHRISTINA KO finds a resort that eases her prejudices – as well as her mind and body
I'VE ALWAYS HATED BALI. The island is too sprawling and too difficult to get around, the traffic means that what should be a 10-minute journey could easily take an hour, the cuisine leaves very much to be desired, the tourist-geared pricing is anything but friendly, and let’s not even begin to talk about the alcohol tax, which makes enjoying a poolside cocktail not quite so enjoyable.
So when our car pulls up outside the Anantara Seminyak Bali, in one of the most touristy of Balinese districts, after considerable stopping and honking, I’m some mixture of cranky and relieved. More so the former when I spot, at the entrance, a flight of two-dozen steps that my companion (by which I mean a couple of litres of dutyfree booze) and I need to scale before reaching the check-in desk.
Luckily, that’s where the aversion ends, and the resort splendour begins. (And even more fortuitously, a bellboy quickly comes to my rescue on the issue of the hand-carried baggage.)
Unlike more expansive, party-friendly properties along Seminyak beach, Anantara retains a discreetness that suits its more sophisticated clientele, those who appreciate the convenience and options of the Seminyak area but would prefer to enjoy a bottle of wine on the balcony rather than full-moon-party till the morning light (that said, Ku De Ta and Potato Head are but a stone’s throw away).
Within the hour, my cranky pants have come off, replaced by a swimsuit and a smile.
The open-air lobby segues into the hotel’s all-day restaurant, Wild Orchid, which is fronted by a long and not particularly outstanding swimming pool. In between the pool and Seminyak beach lie stadium-style
levels decorated by tanning chairs, beanbag chairs or sunbeds. The swimming facilities might seem modest, but the pool population is so sparse it hardly matters – quite a few guests have been diverted to another private pond afforded the Pool Access Suites; others, I assume, prefer to splash around in the actual ocean. And true to the Anantara service code, you need only plonk yourself down on a chair for a minute or two before a waiter materialises with a basket of goodies, including bottled water, towels, sunscreen and mosquito spray (though for what, it’s not clear, because the area is fortunately yet unaccountably bug-free). In a more mass-market resort, the freebies would spell crowds, but in the four days I’m there, there are certainly no catfights over sleeping perches and never more than three people in the pool at a time.
Even if there were, the rooms are sanctuaries that honestly make it difficult to decide whether it’s worth the one-minute trek to the pool. Mine is an Ocean View Suite, and though it’s on the ground floor, you can see straight into the Indian Ocean from the balcony, which features its own little bathtub (keep your swimmers on though, lest your modesty be invaded by roving eyes such as my own when I decide to undertake an impromptu site exploration) complete with a little Balinese bathside game set featuring bowls and stones, clearly suited to those of higher intellect than myself, as I fail to discern the rules or purpose during my stay.
Inside, there are easier games to play, including three baskets worth of entertainment tucked into the TV table containing the likes of a Jenga set and a DVD copy of Skyfall, for those who lack the interest or competence to poke blocks out of a teetering tower. There’s a sketchbook and colour pencils for the artistically inclined – and who wouldn’t be, with views that like?– or a fancy little diary for the writer.
That would be me, except I’ve left my work ethic back at the airport, along with my rapidly subsiding disdain for this beach town. I’m more interested in the giant indoor square tub, complete with a removable shelf that hovers over the tub so you can rest your phone, e-reader or magazines without fear of losing them to the tower of bubbles rising from the water. Your usual amenities are there, of course, but for the true hospitality nerd the extras will be pleasing – Anantara-branded exfoliating scrub and serum in addition to the basic facial products, or a big brown beach towel twisted into the shape of an orangutan swinging from a towel-drying bar.
More of these little touches are available at the Anantara Spa, whose reputation is renowned (a menu is conveniently placed beside your bathtub for perusal), but for those bitten by the social bug, just next to the spa on the top level of the resort is SOS Supper Club, serving tapas and seafood at oceanfacing tables, but with day beds available for those who just want to chat with friends over a drink and some sick sunset views.
It’s up here, persuaded by a gentle breeze and sweeping views, that I discover I quite like Bali, as long as my experience of the place doesn’t extend further than three steps outside the Anantara. The next morning, settled irrevocably into a beanbag chair at Wild Orchid, greedily requesting made-toorder breakfast entrées from the all-you-can-eat menu till no part of the table is visible underneath plates of apple-stuffed French toast, bacon and eggs and stir-fried noodles, and cups of coconut water, guava juice, water and coffee, I decide that yes, I really do like this place after all. Besides, it’s not like I can get up.
Anantara Seminyak Bali can be booked through Mr & Mrs Smith at mrandmrssmith.com
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Whisky expert MARTINE NOUET lives for the pleasures of the peat, and tells GERRIE LIM about finding her island paradise on Islay.
 
SHE LIVES AMID the briny beaches of a remote Hebridean isle, some 116 kilometres west of Glasgow, where eight whisky distilleries abide. There, the peat spirit is kith and king, resulting in some of the finest single malts infused with smoky charms, and they’ve successfully lured Martine Nouet into making Islay her home – despite being, as she herself says, “French and blonde”, with a self-effacing penchant for blonde jokes.
Already famous as a whisky scribe, she was conferred in April 2012 a Master of the Quaich, a rare feat for a woman in a male-dominated realm. Born and bred in Normandy, and a longtime Parisian until Scotland changed her life in 1990, she has extolled the sensualities of the still as the editor (for six years) of Whisky Magazine’s French edition, the author of the whisky book Les Routes du Malt, a whisky judge at the International Wine and Spirits competition in London, and a collaborator with filmmaker Bruno Carrière in his 14-hour Passion Whisky television documentary series. Not too shabby for someone who grew up with Calvados and only discovered the magic of malted barley relatively late in life.
Making up for lost time is what she’s good at, however, as I noted over a whisky luncheon in Hong Kong that she hosted at the behest of Berry, Bros & Rudd, showcasing their Berry’s Own Selection of single malts (including piquant drams of Bruichladdich 1991 and Longmorn 1992, which I found exceptional).
Do you ever feel weird about being a French person working and living in an area so uniquely Scottish?
I know what you mean. I write about whisky but whisky is not in my culture. And I am French so the language is not mine. Also, I am a woman, which is now not so odd, but when I stared writing about whisky 20 years ago there were not many women. I am still the only woman whisky writer from that time [who’s] still involved in it, though I am always a bit embarrassed when I am called an “expert”, because maybe I have a bit more knowledge than some other people but, to me, it doesn’t make me such a rare thing. I am constantly learning.
You sound quite humble about that, even though you are a Master of the Quaich.
I was made a Master of the Quaich last year, which means a lot to me. There are only about 150 of us in the world. I don’t know how many are women, probably a handful of us, so it’s a great recognition. I like to socialise and so hosting these kinds of events and doing the tastings, they’re all important in terms of educating people and giving people the opportunity to discover whisky in the most sensory way. That’s my main purpose. I don’t talk about techniques too much, because technical information can be found in many books or if you visit a distillery, but just tasting and being in touch with your own body, your own senses, that’s something that many people don’t usually do.
I understand your own whisky epiphany occurred when you went to Scotland for the first time.
Yes, it corresponded with a very big change in my life. I was working as a journalist on social issues, women’s issues and politics, and one day I covered a food show in Paris. Suddenly, I realised that that was what I liked, really. I remembered being young and cooking with my granny and my mother, and how I loved my food. Back then, in my personal life, I was just an ordinary cook but I had done a lot of things with chefs and learned from them, so I then left the political area and completely shifted to writing about food. At that time, I got divorced and met somebody else who was of Scottish origin and he asked if we could go to Scotland together. I was in my thirties and had never been to Scotland, and I loved it. Now, between you and me and your readers, I actually hated whisky at that time. When I was a student, I had overindulged myself at parties with whisky and I got so sick that I didn’t touch it for 15 years. My partner was a keen lover of whisky and he said I needed to try this particular whisky. I was given a dram and I didn’t drink it but nosed it, and it felt like nothing I had ever experienced before! It was Cardhu, from Speyside, and it really provoked something in me. That’s how I moved into spirits, which brought me back to what I drank growing up in France – Cognac and Calvados.
Yes, I’ve read that you started out drinking Calvados.
In Normandy, where I was brought up, my uncle was a farmer and there was a travelling distiller who would visit his farm with Calvados. His grandfather, my dad’s father, also made Calvados and was distilling and bottling it back in 1870. It spent 25 years in casks and had a classic taste. As a child, I was not allowed to drink it but there was this Sunday family dinner ritual at my granny’s, and traditionally the men would have their coffee with Calvados – not the women, who could only drink blackcurrant liqueur, a Cassis. As a child, I thought this was unfair, and probably my feminist streak sprang from that. When the meal was finished, the men would go off and play cards, and the women would take all the dishes and do the washing up. There was one moment when the cups were still on the table while everyone was gone, in the kitchen, and there was nobody. So as I would take the cups and I would sip them. There was a bit of sugar left with maybe two drops of Calvados, and I loved the taste. That came back to my memory later, when I wrote a book on Calvados in French and told this story, of my Proust madeleine, those two drops of Calvados in the warm cup.
We were talking earlier about our personal favourite Islay whisky and we share the same, Caol Ila, but it’s such a cold, windswept area I assume there’s a certain romance for you.
Yes, it is windswept and we say we get four seasons in a day, sometimes. Islay is not very big but it’s very diverse. You get the sandy beaches and the cliffs, such a dramatic landscape, but it’s also very fertile and not barren. There is a lot of agriculture. Cows and sheep are bred, and you have lush meadows and green fields. Then you have the black peat – two-thirds of the island is covered in peat – and also you have the heather and all the purples and pinks, lots of flowers, really beautiful. It’s also a paradise for birdwatchers because, in late September until April, we get the wild geese coming from Greenland. Of course, you have the eight distilleries all around this, but what is really special about Islay is the people. The people are very welcoming, very friendly, and there is a sense of community in the villages. They still have this sense of belonging. I never had a sense of belonging in the village where I grew up in France, and I then lived in Paris for 40 years – I’m now 62 – and I never had that there, either. When I arrived for my first press trip on Islay 22 years ago, I felt like it was paradise. It was September and there were the smells – of freshly cut grass and the sea brine and iodine – and I nearly fainted from all that! This was in 1990, and I eventually bought my house there on Islay in 2001. Later, I came to call that my “love trip”, because that’s what it was. I fell in love with Islay.
How do you identify yourself, as an educator or as a writer?
I’m really a whisky and food writer, because writing for me is important. I write every day, and lately I’m doing more personal writing. I’m writing a novel. It’s a challenge for me but I like to challenge myself, it makes me feel alive. It starts off as a romance and then moves into a political plot, and all I will say is this one has nothing to do with whisky directly, though it has to do with “nosing” because my character is a very famous “nose” in the perfume industry. When I was a teenager, I always thought my nose was too big and I was always trying to hide it but now I’m grateful to have this big nose, which is quite sensitive and picks up aromas. My own career came about because nature gave me a big nose.
 
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PHOTOGRAPHY / PHILIPPE MCCLELLAND
CREATIVE DIRECTION AND STYLING / PARIS LIBBY
MAKE-UP / CYNTHIA ROSE
HAIR/ JARRETT IOVINELLA AT EXCLUSIVE ARTISTS MANAGEMENT
PHOTO ASSISTANT / ERIC SCHNEIDER
STYLING ASISTANTS / JANELLE MILLER AND ROSE CONWAY
MODELS / NADAV AT LA MODELS, MARGA AT PHOTOGENICS AND ANDREW PHILLIPSAT DIRECT MODEL MANAGEMENT
LOCATION / VASQUEZ ROCKS NATIONAL PARK, AQUA DULCE, CALIFORNIA
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Christmas Day is creeping up and you still haven’t planned your holidays? Never fear. In this week’s online exclusive, SHEENA K introduces three jolly jaunts for those looking for that all-in-one vacation
 
A DOWNTON-ABBEY DALLIANCE IN LONDON
Multiple flights a day going from Hong Kong to London means getting there isn’t the problem, and there’s always plenty to do in the bustling city. But for a truly unique holiday, book a stay at the Corinthia Hotel London, where guests can be transported by helicopter (in minutes) or Range Rover (in an hour and 15 minutes) to The Petworth Estate in West Sussex for the ultimate Downton Abbey experience. There, you can live like lords and ladies of the manor: indulge in game-hunting, fly-fishing or deer-stalking; check out the stately home’s private collection of Turner paintings; take the horse and carriage out for a ride; and dine on seasonal game, fish and foraged ingredients prepared by the Corinthia’s top chefs (who will even cater to Paleo diets, for a real throwback experience). 
 
CHILLED OUT IN CHIANG MAI
Looking for something a little extra? Then make your way over to the Four Seasons Resort Chiang Mai for that perfect all-in-one stay. The stunning property offers daily activities to keep you and your family busy. Join the team for a Spa 101 session so you can learn to give (and get) your Thai massage fix at home, or attend the Cooking School where you’ll be introduced to delicious Thai specialties such as tom yum goong and kaow soi gai. Other fun activities include Thai kick boxing, garden tours, Thai language classes and hot-air balloon rides – or just kick back by the pool and wait for a chance encounter with everyone’s favourite resort staff, the water buffalo, Tong. Sign us up now!
 
SHOPPER’S DELIGHT IN FLORENCE
The Ferragamo-family-owned hospitality group Lungarno Collection has crafted an Exclusive Shopping Experience package for luxury travellers from this side of the world. Guests can enjoy a two-night stay in Florence at the Hotel Lungarno, Continentale or Gallery Hotel Art, along with a three-hour tour with your own personal shopper at the finest boutiques in the city, so you don’t have to bother with Google Maps or tricky trails. Shopaholics will also receive the VIP treatment on arrival, including a gourmet dinner for two at Borgo San Jacopo, complimentary access to the Salvatore Ferragamo Museum, daily breakfast at any Lungarno Collection hotel and a Lungarno Collection Privilege Card, affording benefits at boutiques across the city.
 
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SELDOM IS IT a joy to interview a chef. Few men or women of the kitchen enjoy speaking about themselves (or else they would most likely have chosen another profession); those who do are often so rehearsed or diplomatic you wonder why they even bothered meeting you in the first place.
If I’d had to guess, I’d have imagined that the great Daniel Boulud would fall into the latter category. His flagship restaurant, Daniel, is 20 years old this year, and the chef-owner has been entertaining journalists for just as long. What can be asked or said that hasn’t been already uttered countless times in decades previous?
Lots, it turns out. But with back-to-back interview slots and less than an hour’s time to chat, that blessing quickly becomes a curse. Daniel Boulud, it turns out, is a talker.
Part of that is because he’s become accustomed to meeting new people, but mostly, I think, it’s because some decades into his career he still finds ways to challenge and entertain himself, despite the fact that he reached the pinnacle of his industry a long time ago – rather than plateau, he’s found new mountains.
His latest achievement is a cookbook called Daniel: My French Cuisine, a three-tome leviathan comprising anecdotes, signature recipes, essays on the building blocks of Gallic cuisine and documented recreations of lost dishes from French history – some successful, others valiantly attempted. Of that last undertaking, Boulud explains, “This is the heart and soul of French cooking. It’s about soul, because there’s nothing worse than cooking without soul.”
His career has always been about soul more than anything else. Famously, Boulud decided as a teenager to become a chef without having ever dined in a restaurant. “My parents put me into cooking school, and I hated the food so much because it was definitely worse than home, and the chef at that cooking school was not that inspiring, but I felt that I loved cooking. I wanted to cook, but I didn’t want to cook in a school like that.” Thanks to a family connection with a wealthy patron, he was positioned at a top restaurant kitchen instead. He was 14.
“The first thing I learned…when I became a cook, on my way to becoming a chef one day, is that with that job we can travel all around the world. We can go anywhere, you’ll always find a job, and there’s always going to be an opportunity for you to cook,” he says. That opportunity knocked on his door at age 25, when a friend referred him to the new Belgian ambassador to te US, who was to be stationed in Washington, DC.
“I said, ‘Why not?’ I mean, you know they’ll give me a visa, a car, an apartment, a cushy job…not too much work. It was perfect. [I was] 25 years old. I’m going. So I came to America in 1980 and after three years I had had enough of this sabbatical because I was not working too hard, I was playing a lot, travelling a lot. I spent time in New York and I was fascinated by [it]; fascinated by the energy, by the power, by the restaurants. So I came to New York, and never left.” It’s the classic tale of a farm boy who finds fame and fortune in the big city, one that seems clichéd thanks to fairytales spun by our film industry, until you remember that it isn’t that easy, that it’s a one-in-a-million story.
Which makes it all the more unique that Boulud has chosen, for the most part, to keep his empire tightly focused around America and the Big Apple (though he has a handful of enterprises elsewhere, including London and Singapore). Surely he could have more of an international reach – especially given figures like those recently recorded during his visiting gig at Amber at The Landmark Mandarin Oriental, Hong Kong. Tables for the $1,980-a-head dinner were booked solid the day it was announced.
There are a couple Épicerie Bouluds in the works for New York, as well as openings in DC, Vegas and Boston, but so far nothing further is planned for the gourmet in Asia. “The restaurant – Daniel – there is only one and there will always be only one. The other restaurants like Bar Boulud or DB Bistro [though], I’m very comfortable with opening that kind of restaurant.”
Which means, I suppose, that for a bite of that brilliance offered only at Daniel, if you aren’t willing to fly to New York, you’d better be damn good at following cookbook instructions.
 
+Prestige Hong Kong

IF YOU GO DOWN to Sheung Wan today, you’re sure of a big surprise. Up above you, on the 21st floor of a nondescript building, a melting pot of creativity is bubbling. The brainchild of John Brunner and Igor Duc, Native Union has been creating design-led consumer electronics since early 2009.
Brunner and Duc met five years ago, when they were both running their own furniture-design companies out of a co-working office space. Their joint appreciation of aesthetics led them to found Native Union, but it was the instantly recognisable POP phone that put the brand on the map and spawned a dozen rip-offs.
As Brunner tells it, they were having dim sum at dragon-i, discussing whether anyone would actually use the POP phone out and about. “We said, ‘That’s a crazy idea, no one’s ever going to do that.’ Obviously, we were wrong.” Duc adds, “We never thought people would use it as an element of style.”
Let’s start with the name: Native Union. What does it mean?
John: It was an idea that Igor and I had when we first started thinking about the business, and the idea was about simple communication in a complicated world. Our first products were based on a really simple idea that when you’re in the office, you don’t want to have a mobile phone to your head. Native Union is about taking that idea further. So “union” refers to bringing people together.
You’re a Hong Kong company, but John’s British and Igor is French.
J: We’ve definitely been around the houses on this one. A lot of our competitors and other people in a similar situation, they might hark back to the fact that they’re British, or French, or American, and hinge their brand to that part of their identity. We took the decision to embrace the fact that we’re a Hong Kong brand; we met here. The success of the brand is all about the fact that we’re a Hong Kong business.
Do you think we’re in an age where we fetishise all things retro? If so, how does that affect a design company such as yours?
J: There are two things there. What we do is try and use materials with a finish and a feel that harks back to an age where quality materials were used. For example, the Monocle [speaker], with that milled copper finish. [We used that] because we love the finish and feel it gives the product. It’s not necessarily trying to be retro.
Igor: It’s important to say that we’re not a retro brand, because a lot of people think: Native Union, POP phone; POP phone, retro brand. [The POP phone is the brand’s receiver inspired by 1950s Bakelite telephones.] Because we come from a background that isn’t electronic, we don’t really like plastic. I think the purpose of using really nice materials is that we don’t want people to just use or like the product, we want them to love the product.
What’s the Native Union motto?
J: We have lots of mottos.
I: It depends on the day!
J: One of them is “Hard to make”. In all of our products there’s an element of “hard to make” about them. If you take the Clic [iPhone] case, for instance, it’s an extremely difficult product to make. There are very, very few places where this could be made. It’s a piece of solid wood milled to within half a millimetre to fit a precision case with a stamped piece of brass.
I: Another motto is “Independent spirit”, which refers to the fact that we don’t have any big company behind us. We are very independent, so we can push an idea to whatever extent we want, and sometimes this is when we get really great stuff done.
J: We also like products that “Wear in, not wear out”. The Clic case is quite interesting because the oil from your hands soaks into the wood, so all of these cases will end up looking different to the case you bought two months earlier.
You guys have such a cool office here in Sheung Wan.
J: We were in Sheung Wan prior to this actually. Between May 2011 and May 2012, we moved offices four times. We were in Sai Ying Pun and then we were in Wyndham Street. Then we were down on Mercer Street. So we sort of “did” Hong Kong and we ended up down here.
I: We’ve been moving west, west, west, trying always to be on the edge. Still on the cool side, but the “cool” stream is moving west as well. Every time we move somewhere we say, “OK, it’s a bit edgy, we have no restaurants.” Then six months later we see restaurants and the area gets extremely trendy.
J: There’s still a certain amount of satisfaction when a customer turns up and they have to walk through the dried-food market and all the pretty intense smells – especially if they’re an out-of-towner. You can see the look on their face as they get out of the elevator doors; they have no idea what to expect. So that’s quite a fun contradiction, which I guess is a very Hong Kong thing.
+Prestige Hong Kong

TEXT / CHRISTINA KO
A REGULAR ON THE society circuit, Helen Ma was once known for her impeccable beauty choices and daring fashion sense. She still is, but last year she added a couple of new titles to the list: wife, to Yohan Simonian, whom she married early last year; mother, to daughter Shyme, who was born last October; and entrepreneur, as director of skincare brand Evidens de Beauté in Hong Kong and China, and the associated spa, Spa Evidens, which opened shortly before the birth of her baby. Ma is all grown up, but don’t expect her to be an ambassador for Mommy Chic – clad in leather skinnies from Zara, a tank from Alexander Wang and a covetable leather biker jacket from Fendi, with her hair bleached to a luminous platinum blonde, she’s still more rock chick than businesswoman or PTA mother. Prestige Hong Kong caught up with the unconventional baroness of beauty.
Spa Evidens opened just over a year ago. How’s business been?
It’s been doing well. Of course in the beginning it was quite tough for us, we started from zero and it’s not like you can get all of your friends in by giving freebies all the time. So for the first four or five months, we went through a tough time with [getting] customers, but we’re having our rainbow now, there’s the potential and we can see it.
How did you come up with the idea to start the business?
I wanted to open a spa, but I was thinking, well, what products should I use? I was giving myself a bet – [I’ll do it] if I can find a brand that I really like, and like what it means, and feels like luxury to me. So I just Googled. And luckily, I found this brand and put it in the spa.
What was your vision?
To be the most luxurious. From what I use, everything, I have no competitor. It’s all about minimalism – I don’t like in a traditional spa when you hear the waves, the birdsong, all that…not that I hate it, but I get bored.
As a veteran spa-goer and now operator, what do you look for in a spa?
Therapists are very important, the place is important, and the products as well. It comes in a package. Nowadays people are very demanding…and I’m one of those.
What are the biggest turnoffs for spa-goers?
I like deep-tissue massages, and I hate it when the therapist is just kind of touching you, it’s like I wasted my time there. The environment is important, but it also depends on what you pay for it. I’m also a very big fan of going to Thailand and getting like a 100-baht massage or something, but good service is very important.
When you first moved into Cubus building, it was mostly empty with very few tenants. Was it a gamble?
It was really a bet for us. We really liked the location and we signed in April [2012], and after doing all the renovation – it took three months – we saw a big difference already in traffic, people were coming into the building. And we knew we made the right choice.
What are the most popular treatments at the spa?
Hong Kong people like to do brightening, because it makes you skin look brighter – not whitening, but brightening. It’s one of our signatures here. I’m very lucky, my skin always has the glow, but I do regular facials, once a week. And then I do the machine treatments. I have to do it, because I’m used to it. You have to have those because people come in and ask for it, and we want to have the complete services.
Now that you’re in the spa business, is it important for you to stay on the cutting edge with industry advancements?
You cannot keep up with everything. We are into the technological [advancements] but we cannot get the newest all the time. If you have the iPhone 5, is there really any point to get the 5s? We’re into that, but we’re not too crazy following the [new trends].
Your daughter was born shortly after the spa opened. How do you balance work and family?
Now it’s actually easier because preparation [for the opening] was the hardest thing. So last year was really very tough when the business began. Now we’re on the right track, so it’s easier. I also need to go out [to promote the brand]. Before, I would go to whatever events I want. Now I have to go. I cannot disappear. So I don’t have much time to take care of her myself, but Saturday and Sunday I try to spend time with her. The weather is cooler now, but in the summertime I swim with her – she likes water.
You’ve always been known as one of the city’s most stylish women. Has your style changed?
Before I was a mom I had more time to shop, but now I don’t. I don’t follow trends. I like leather a lot – I’m completely in love with leather, it’s my thing. Heels, shoes…you know. I’m in pants usually, that princess girly-girly thing is not me. When you get older, you get more classic. But being a mom doesn’t mean you have to be more conservative. I’m very happy with my hair now, even though it takes four hours when I need a touch-up. Every time I’m like, “Really? Do I really want to do this again?” You have the nicest colour that everyone loves, but there’s a lot of damage.
So what do you get up to in your free moments?
I tend to stay at home more, staying in with my daughter. She’s so active she wants to crawl everywhere. She’s about to walk! A few steps, she’s confident, but soon she’ll be damaging everything, I’m sure [laughs]. So what’s next for you and the brand? We’re pushing into retail more. We have one retail shop and we’ll be opening more next year. We’re talking to Lane Crawford and Sogo. We’re looking at The Pulse, in Repulse Bay. Gaia Group is opening something, Bonnae Gokson, Yo Mama…Pure will do beach yoga. It’s good for me to get into that community.
+Prestige Hong Kong

IF THE KEY to a happy life is finding the right balance, Michelle Yeoh seems to have things pretty much worked out.
Today she’s sitting back on a sofa surrounded by Richard Mille timepieces as she lends her fame to the brand’s presence at the Watches & Wonders 2013 exhibition in Hong Kong.
Things seem to continue to roll along at a hectic pace for Yeoh, and she soon turns our attention to the new film studio she’s involved in back home in Malaysia, plus the little matter of the much-anticipated (and long-awaited) sequel to the Oscar-winning Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon [2000] which has had the Internet buzzing for the past 12 months as actual production appears to be coming closer to fruition.
But while there’s a definite business side to the proceedings here today, the very first thing the 51-year-old actress offers up is the fact that Jackie Chan has just popped by for a chat, and she’s wondering now just who else might grab the chance for a quick catch-up while she’s in town.
It has been eight years since Yeoh graced the very first cover of Prestige Hong Kong– “So much has happened and we’ve both come so far,” she says – and she wants us to know that one of the biggest lessons she has learned is that you have to make the most of opportunities, as soon as they present themselves.
Your latest film – Final Recipe– just played at the San Sebastian Film Festival. What can you tell us about it?
The director, Gina Kim, is someone I really wanted to work with. I thought her last film – Never Forever [2007] – was fantastic. This one is about family and food, and what’s more important than that? Especially for Asians – they’re the two things that you can’t get away from. So it was great to show the audience there this part of our lives here.
And you produced the film as well. How is that side of your career progressing?
Well, when I first did it – with Silver Hawk [2004] – it was just awful. It was during Sars and the city was on its knees. Everything was shut down and there was this constant fear of someone falling sick. It was a bad experience and I said to myself, “If I do this again I don’t want to be the lead, as it takes away the joy of being an actor.”
What was the worst part of that experience for you?
You spend all the time doing crisis management and every bad thing that could happen on a film happened. I had to step back and reassess everything. So now I have a new company in Malaysia and it’s all going great.
How has that been developing?
We have a new studio, we have support from the government and now we’re trying to attract people to come down and work with us. It’s also about giving something back to the industry and supporting the next generation. It’s not just about being a talent agent, but about helping to create jobs for the industry – you can sign 50 people, but what are they going to do?
With the growing strength of the box office in Asia, has making films here become easier?
It’s still the same. I don’t think the process of making a good film ever gets easier. It’s just as tough as it ever was. There’s never any guarantee of what will be a success and no producer ever goes into a movie thinking, “This is going to be a loss.” What has happened is that movies have become too expensive to make and if you don’t have a great opening weekend, then it’s a total disaster.
So what sort of productions are you looking at?
You have to think more about the inbetweens. That’s what I want to do. You have to look at the more art-house films and get back some level of sanity to making films.
How is the Chinese market influencing things?
China has been smart, because they’re building the cinemas everywhere. Forget about the pirating and whatever, they’re building places where people can go and see the movies, which they’ve never had before. For a filmmaker that’s great news, and of course it’s exactly what we want.
And more people are going to the cinema in China simply because they haven’t really had the opportunity before.
Yes. Well, you can watch a film on your iPad or whatever, but that’s not the real experience of cinema, of watching a movie. And in China people are discovering this for the very first time. It’s an affordable entertainment for people of any age. It is a bonding experience. We have to remind people who might have forgotten about that too.
What stage are you at with the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon sequel?
Well, Harvey [Weinstein] is working on it. I swear to God, this guy is relentless. When he wants something he gets it, and he wants this film to be made. I have great confidence in him so we’ll wait and see what he gives us. He’s seen what we can do and he wants to be part of that vision.
How do you look back at the experience – and the success – of that film?
It was such a labour of love, for all of us. At that time no one thought we would go far. Ang Lee was known for small films, but he never does things by half. He has passion and I met him in New York – this was even before I did Tomorrow Never Dies [1997]. He brought his family and he wanted to get a feel for what it would be like working with me.
How did he pitch the production?
He told me doing a martial-arts film had been his childhood dream. And while we met he was drawing a picture of the project, like a watercolour with words. I was hooked and didn’t take on another project for two years while we waited to get production going, even though I was getting all these offers after Tomorrow Never Dies.
How careful have you been with your choices of roles?
I have tried to be careful. What interests me has changed. When I started I had no idea at all. I’d dabbled in theatre, in drama, at school in England, and I hated it. If you’d suggested to my lecturers that Michelle Yeoh would one day be an actor, they would have laughed and said, “I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
What was the main problem?
Well, I just didn’t like to speak in front of people. And when I started acting in Hong Kong it was a baptism by fire. At that time [in the early 1980s] you really had no scripts. You had a general idea of what you were going to do, and you just had to go with it. I didn’t speak very good Cantonese and I didn’t read Chinese – not that there was a script. Only the director and the editor knew what was going on. So when you watched the film you could say, “Oh that’s what was happening. Now I get it.” But it made me the actress I am today. It taught me to listen and to learn. The first thing you have to do is listen.
How much more comfortable are you as a performer now?
I think you never get to a stage when you relax. You’re always finding out new things and pushing yourself forward. I’ve never been in this for the money, so I’m not forced to take roles because I need to pay the bills. I’m really blessed in that way as it has given me more stability. I can choose whose dreams or visions I can work on.
How has the stability in your life off-camera – and the relationship you’re in with Jean Todt [former Ferrari CEO and now president of the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile] – helped?
I swear to God, it has helped tremendously. When you’re in doubt, with yourself or your partner, it affects you. You get distracted, you don’t know what you’re doing. With Jean, I don’t want to say he completes me – I am who I am – but he accepts me for who I am. He loves me for that. He doesn’t try to make me be what he thinks I should be. He doesn’t try to change me and I would never try to change who he is either.
Does it help that he’s also used to attention, to fame?
I’m very proud of who he is. When I’m with him, it’s like he’s a rock star. He’s a legend in his role. I get forgotten when we’re at motor events, so it’s a lovely balance.
Do you think with relationships like yours it all comes down to timing?
Well, when you’re younger, you’re more highly strung and less understanding, and you always feel that you’re right. With age and maturity, you grow. You make mistakes and learn. You bang your head against the wall five times and finally you realise you shouldn’t do that. So I’m very happy. I’ve always been a person who doesn’t want to live with regrets. If I’ve done something wrong I move on, I let go. Today I’m in a very happy place and I’m looking to the future. It’s exciting.
+Prestige Hong Kong

MICHAEL PALIN SAYS he always wanted to see the world. As a child growing up in the north of England, he’d been enchanted by the wild tales of the fictional pilot Biggles and by the real-life adventures of the explorers Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton. Even as his career as a comedian, actor and founding member of the Monty Python troupe took off, there was always the desire to get out there and see more, he says.
That Palin has eventually been able to do so, through his work on eight TV series and their corresponding books, and through his association with the Royal Geographical Society (he served as RGS president from 2009 to 2012), brings a shine to the 70-yearold’s eyes as we sit down for a chat inside a sprawling suite in the Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong. Palin has been in town to help launch an exhibition of photos taken on his travels with Hong Kong-born photographer Basil Pao, and to give a few talks about his many and varied experiences on the road – and he’s clearly enjoying the experience (“Not a bad place to get over your jet lag, is it?” he laughs as he looks around the suite and out across Victoria Harbour).
Palin has plans to hook up with long-time friend Pao for dinner on Cheung Chau island the next night, and says he relishes returning to a city that always excites him and always promises something new. And that’s the thing about travel, says Palin – your horizons are always expanding.
Can you remember the very first time you travelled or went on a holiday?
I so distinctly remember our first holiday when I was about five years old. We went to Sheringham in Norfolk. My father was a Norfolk man who’d moved north during the Depression to find work in Sheffield. We went by train and it was a terrific palaver with all our bags, and my father taking his bicycle. Travel wasn’t easy at all then, but it was the excitement, which is of being somewhere different and just seeing the sea for the first time, getting that first sniff of the sea. It’s an excitement that I still get when I travel today.
Had you grown up reading travel books, or stories about travel?
I was always interested in stories that were set in foreign countries. I was always just fascinated by waterfalls, volcanoes, deserts – places that were just different from where I lived. There was a sense of wonder in me, even then, but never the slightest inkling that I would ever go to all these places. But those stories took me out of Sheffield, where I knew I was going to spend the rest of my life. My getaway was these foreign countries in my mind and imagination. I wanted to be an explorer. I wanted to be the first person to see this or that. It was very frustrating, as I was growing up too slowly and everywhere was being explored. When they climbed Everest in ’53 and I was 10 years old, I thought, “Oh no. The bastards!”
When did you first go overseas?
The first time I left the country was when I was 19 and at university, and I went with the ski club to Austria – a place called Solden. But I didn’t really travel much after that as I was establishing myself with Terry Jones as a comedy writer, working for The Frost Report and The Two Ronnies, and eventually with Monty Python. Everything I earned went into the home, paying the mortgage. But in 1972, Terry and I decided to go to the United States, because we’d been so influenced by the culture there, the music and the films.
Was America the wonderland you’d expected it to be?
It was mind-blowing. It was fantastic. We had our adventures. New Orleans was fun. We went out into the Delta and stopped in a little bar and the owner couldn’t believe two English people had got that far south. She put records on for us and wanted to dance. Eventually, once she started to talk about her new waterbed and her daughter, we thought perhaps it was better that we started to head back home.
How much do you think the experience of travel has changed since then?
I think we all expect to be able to travel anywhere now. It’s become such a part of our lives. It’s become easier to get to places. But that’s not really special. You have to go off the main drag. It doesn’t have to be spectacular; it’s just getting some place where you can have your own sense of wonder restored. Seeing natural wonders, for example.
What are the natural wonders that have left the biggest impression on you?
I’m a great waterfall fan, so the first time I saw Victoria Falls is one of my favourite memories, just to see that force of falling water. It’s humbling.
And the biggest disappointments?
Well it sounds a funny thing to say, but the North and South Poles were both pretty anti-climactic. The North Pole, because it’s just a point on a surface of some floating ice. It was exciting to land there on an ice floe, though. The South Pole is a depot, so you have pallets and skips and things. So I was a bit disappointed by the Poles!
What has all this travel added to your life?
It’s the feeling of discovering something. It adds such drama. The great thing is that I can go to a place and observe people, rather than be observed, which is what I used to do as a boy. I used to just love watching the world go by. I wasn’t an exhibitionist. I just used to watch and write down little things about what I saw. That’s what I still like to do. The [TV] programmes and the book have documented what we’ve done so well that I just have to revisit one of them and it all comes back. I’m not actually a collector of countries, as some people are. There’s just something about foreignness that I like – the experience of going to some place that’s just very, very different. It’s like the mountain villages in Pakistan or Yunnan in China. You think, “My God, this is so different.” But then people will give you a cup of tea and have a laugh, so you find there are these things that unite us. That’s a wonderful feeling.
Is there something that’s always the first thing you throw in your suitcase?
That has never really changed – I have to have a notebook. We don’t have a script when we travel. We make it up from the encounters we experience along the way. But I’ve always taken notes. I love to write things down. I like to open up a notebook five years later and see the wine stain at the end of a page. It’s something you don’t get from a computer because it’s of the moment. You get a great feeling, it takes you back to the moment. More and more I’ve learned to take less and less – and one thing that’s changed is the materials they use for travel clothing. You used to wear what you wore at home. People climbed
Everest in thick tweed trousers. Now it’s compact, lightweight and quite extraordinary.
What do you think makes your long-standing relationship with photographer Basil Pao work?
Well, we both like the buzz and travel, and being on the road. That’s the essential thing – the common enjoyment. And Baz is a brilliant packer. Down the back of his bag there’d be a little zipper and in there would be tins of oysters, which he’d bring out when we’re in the middle of Ethiopia or somewhere. “How about an oyster?” He’s a great provider. He also believes in charcoal tablets as a cure for any digestive problems. Never worked for me. I’ve lots of them and they only gave me black poo. But he’s great for remedies and making things as comfortable as possible.
What have you learned from your travels?
I think it’s just one of the most fulfilling experiences you can have. Both mind and body are at work. When you go to somewhere different, remote, off the track, and you have to be alert and your body has to be in shape. It means you’re using your whole system. It’s really engaging, and occupying all of your time. It’s just totally absorbing. And the total sheer thrill of it for me has never changed – and I hope it never will.
+Prestige Hong Kong

BRUCE ROCKOWITZ, DUDDELL'S; OCTOBER 25
“It took about two months to plan Bruce’s surprise birthday party at Duddell’s,” says CoCo Lee. “I wanted to celebrate not only his birthday, but all his accomplishments in work – and him as an amazing human being.
“I could only work on it when he was at work, and I’d wake up in the middle of the night, while he was asleep, to plan the party. I was doing everything, from the menu to table decor, designing the staff uniforms with a BR55 logo, bringing in Five For Fighting, drawing up the DJ’s playlist, arranging fairy lights for the outdoor area, lighting the main venue, planning the video projection content…all the nitty-gritty!
“It wasn’t easy keeping it a secret as he’s super sharp, but I managed to pull it off and really surprised him, along with 90 of his friends, family and colleagues.”
 
+Prestige Hong Kong

VERA WANG teaches CHRISTINA KO a thing or two about balance
WE’RE GATHERED FOR pre-lunch champagne at the garden of a private mansion on The Peak that overlooks Hong Kong, and I’m afraid Vera Wang is going to fall. The scene is picture-perfect for a pre-wedding photo shoot, possibly featuring one of Wang’s to-die-for bridal confections, but the stone-covered pathways are certainly not made for those sporting six-inch Alaïa boots. “If she falls, it’ll make for a good story,” suggests the devil on my left shoulder…
She doesn’t, because no self-respecting New Yorker would. But luckily for me, she does give a good story, even if it’s not a tale of the mighty fallen. Although the wedding world forever associates her name with gowns that are the stuff of dreams, those who follow fashion news know that the woman behind the name is something of a tomboy, a spirited, articulate and fast-talking entrepreneur who transcends the title of designer and truly owns both her business and her identity.
That’s perhaps because the first hat Wang wore wasn’t that of a creative, but a teenage figure-skating champ with sights on the Olympics. When she didn’t make the American team in 1968, she did some time in Paris, where she inadvertently picked up enough French flair that when, back home, Vogue Fashion Director Frances Stein spotted her working at an Yves Saint Laurent boutique as a sales girl, she offered the then college student a job.
You won’t hear stories like that today, but Wang reminds, “This was another era. I think she thought I had a real gift for putting clothes together, and understood clothes, and I’d also lived in Paris, in all fairness. I’d always had a willingness to learn, was fascinated by the process of knowledge and learning. I’d studied skating and ballet and movement and dance; line, shape and volume – all that I studied in fashion as well. It wasn’t the glamour, because I didn’t know what glamour meant. It was the work, always the work.”
She stayed at Vogue for 16 years, until she was invited to join Ralph Lauren as design director, a job she held for another three years before launching her own bridal boutique in 1990, just as she herself was engaged to be married. For those who’ve met Wang, a sensible woman with a personal style that leans towards biker-goth and an admitted affinity for androgynous clothing, going bridal was a bizarre, almost illogical move. In fact, the decision to descend into wedding whimsy was driven entirely by pragmatism.
“My father identified a business opportunity that he thought would be very controllable, sustainable, and where I could build a platform. I don’t think he ever thought beyond that, and if you know anything about bridal, there are very few repeat clients – at least you hope not – and there’s no inventory because dresses are cut and made to measure, in very few fabrics compared to ready-to-wear,” she says.
“A lot of the investment for bridal in the beginning was so much smaller than it ever would have been for a collection; I mean not even on a comprehensible scale. It was a very practical business plan: start in bridal, go to evening and from there work backwards to sportswear.”
Few designers would admit that their career plans were commercially driven; fewer yet would cop to taking advice from daddy. But back then, as now, Wang is no template creative. An Asian in a racially homogenous industry, an editor-turned-designer in an era before multi-hyphenates were common, a wedding-dress creator before anyone cared about making a name in that category, she has defied stereotype from the beginning.
When John Galliano and Wang visited Shanghai, they both took home inspiration for their next collections, his manifesting in classic embroideries and Ming Dynasty tropes, hers in the muted hues of modern China, greys and greens and copper – “[My ethnicity] has totally informed my work. I think there is a history, a respect of what came before. There is grace and a sense of mystery from an American perspective, about Asia. For that reason I like to think that whatever work I have created, there are all those elements – a sense of mystery, a sense of sensuality, a sense of grace.”
On a personal level, that mystery has been relatively easy to maintain, as a behind-the-scenes operator – until now. The age of social media today demands that a face accompanies each product, that an editor has a public voice, that a designer acts as a brand ambassador. It’s one of the more jarring changes in Wang’s 45-year career.
“I dress stars, and they are the stars, not me. I do my best to make them look the very best that they can look. The fact that the focus can turn back onto me or any of the other designers, my friends, it’s a bit unsettling for someone who has always worked – in the magazines, at Ralph Lauren, in my own company – behind the scenes,” she says. The editors are getting the same treatment, as well, I point out, particularly those in the fashion beat.
“Yes,” she muses. “It’s turning on everybody and I think there is certainly a freedom to it, but there is also a randomness to it that sometimes is disconcerting. I’m basically quite a quiet person. I have lived a fairly quiet life and I think the people I dress have not, they are movie and TV and music stars and that’s how I’ve always viewed them. I don’t equate myself to that; I don’t feel I have anything to do with that. If my work speaks, that’s where I get most satisfaction, and that could be a bride, not just a movie star.”
Wang may not see herself as a front-and-centre spokesperson, but she definitely has no aversion to seeing her name on efforts that stretch beyond the wedding dress realm. Her bridal line, available in Hong Kong at Central Weddings, and in a standalone boutique in SoHo, needs no further mention. Her ready-to-wear label, launched in 2002, has become a space in which Wang can express her true aesthetic, a sporty, athletic princess with a little rock-star edge. She has more reasonably priced bridal and lifestyle collections with David’s Bridal and Kohl’s respectively, she’s designed for Olympic figure skaters such as Michelle Kwan and Evan Lysacek as a way of paying homage to her own past, and has launched fragrance, jewellery, eyewear, shoe and home collections. “I think there’s a film and I think there’s some books in me. There’s definitely somewhere an athletic line – that is so much a part of how I dress and how I live and would be extremely authentic,” she says. “I think I would love to tap into a market that is somewhere between the price points we’re at.”
So basically…she wants it all. You could call it a thirst for success, but also, on some level, the need for diversity could be born out of a frustration at too much success in one particular realm, the one she first entered. “I do sometimes feel very frustrated [at being primarily associated bridal design]. I always say I’m a fashion designer who happens to do bridal gowns.
“[But] probably one of the reasons we’ve been successful with bridal is because I never came from a bridal place. I think I brought a certain freedom and out-of-the-box experimentation and whimsy to a category that is quite traditional. I wasn’t trapped within a bridal vocabulary. It’s also extremely – in a weird way – liberating. I can express great theatre and drama with wedding, and with ready-to-wear I can have a chance to express my own true personal nature, which is easier. Lighter, cooler, hipper.”
+Prestige Hong Kong

What’s the best thing you ate in 2013? To mark Prestige Hong Kong’s 100th issue, CHRISTINA KO asks 100 chefs, socialites, foodies, friends and colleagues to share their favourite food memories
 
THE MISSION WAS SIMPLE. Find 100 foodies, and ask them to name the best dish they’d consumed in 2013. Besides the obvious effort involved in emailing 100 people, it seemed straightforward enough. Except that 2013 comprised more than 1,000 meal slots, and asking the food-obsessed to choose just one was apparently no different from telling a parent to pick a favourite child – not impossible, just difficult.
I posed the question of myself, and instantly grasped the issue. The camera roll on my Smartphone provided an overly detailed history of my favourite meals and dishes, but “best” is an arbitrary designation. I remembered the feeling of warm wonderment upon consuming a pile of sweet uni at Sushi Sase; the transcendence of the oysters served one rainy night in Cannes at Astoux Et Brun. But surely, one cannot anoint a restaurant simply for good sourcing of seafood.
There was the time I piled 48-month Iberico, goat cheese and Asian pear on butter-soaked Bo-Lo’Gne toast (whose dough is folded and dusted with butter 81 times), but can giving oneself a heart-attack sandwich honestly be termed as the best dining experience in a year – a year filled with celebrity-guest-chef dinners, food-finding travels and the opening of Ronin, whose dishes took up four slots on our list?
I waited as the other 99 respondents filled the slots, and mused over options both haute and street: a 10-course crab-only feast in Sapporo, a creamy stracciatella burrata from Obikà in Milan, the legendary veal goulashes at the Kowloon City institution Islam Food, even a strange and pretentious piece of grilled liquorice at a Dom Pérignon tasting in Champagne that wasn’t for consumption, but whose flavours were able to influence the character of the vintage utterly and miraculously.
When putting together a trend study on the future of food, my friend and branding/PR maven Cathy Chon believed the definition of a “foodie” could be determined by one question: “Do you travel for food?” And so I distilled my bests into a single best with a similarly austere self-interrogation. “What would you want as your last meal ever?”
The answer, you’ll find, is sandwiched among the 99 others below. May this bring you inspiration for 2014. Just don’t read it before lunch.
1.        Fresh grilled seafood at Jimbaran Beach in Bali, because it’s so fresh prepared with the different spices. What better way to enjoy this than in your shorts and watching a beautiful sunset? – Jonay Armas, head chef of The Principal
2.        It’s a toss up between moules marinières at The Seafood Restaurant by Rick Stein in Padstow, Cornwall, England or Philly cheese steaks at The Bazaar by José Andrés in LA. – Claire Blackshaw,director of public relations at FourSeasons Hotel Hong Kong
3.        It’s easy to have an expensive fine-dining experience with high-end menus, but difficult to find traditional restaurants with chefs who cook with their hearts. I had the best chicken rice in the Lavender Food Square Centre in Singapore. I loved its authenticity and simplicity. There’s also a restaurant in Italy called Di Mario Caramella and I remember the bollito misto, which was wonderful. – NicolaCanuti, executive chef at InterContinentalHong Kong
4.        Minced toro sushi, the fish scraped fresh from a whole piece of fatty tuna belly with a teaspoon, dripping in oil, from Kishoku. – Vivienne Chan, assistantbrand manager for Perrier-Jouët
5.       Last time I was in Bali, on the beach at a hut-like restaurant, they steamed a grouper in coconut water with chilli, lime, coriander, tofu and spices – really was a nice (and cheap) dish. – DannyChaney, executive chef of Blue Butcher
6.        The best thing I ate this year was surprisingly the pastrami on rye from Katz’s Delicatessen in New York. Despite years of living there, I’d never set foot into Katz’s, writing it off as a tourist trap. This was definitely a case of living up to the hype and more. – Feiping Chang,socialite
7.        The most memorable was probably the omakase at Kishoku in Causeway Bay, perhaps because it had been a while since we had raw foods (my wife Candice being pregnant and then breast-feeding), so that first meal a few months after Logan was born just tasted so unbelievably fantastic – especially the uni in its own case and the crisp seaweed-wrapped toro. – Leonard Chao, founder of the soon-to-openKelly & Moss
8.        I loved discovering the “hole in the wall” Ronin. It’s like an Aladdin’s cave where one pushes through the unmarked grey door, et voila! You’re in for a night of fine sensations! Slick-to-a-fault “mambo boogaloo” music, ingenious pairing of ingredients, most extensive and exclusive display of Japanese whisky this side of heaven and faultless service from eye-candy staff…What more could I ask for? – Barney Cheng, fashion designer
9.        I was having a kaiseki meal in a private onsen in Hakone, Japan and was served a bowl of rice with homemade tofu that was soft as clouds, and sweet salmon roe with a gentle touch of soy sauce. I still remember it for its simple yet comforting flavours. – Lisa Cheng, founder of SheerLingerie
10.      Sweetened ginkgo nuts, during my trip to Bangkok in August, when it was served as the appetiser in a famous Thai-Chinese restaurant. It was the first time I’d tried this super-delicious snack. Ginkgo nuts are commonly used in desserts in Chinese cuisine but they were never my favourite, so this was my biggest culinary discovery of 2013. – Cherry Cheung, associate director atOccasions PR & Marketing
11.      2013 was meant to be the year when I would get an awesome six-pack. Instead, I ate two bowls of awesome crab roe and prawn noodles at Fu 1088 in Shanghai – noodles wrapped in creamy crab roe interlaced with the crunchy texture of prawns. Six-pack next year. I know it. – Tony Cheng, CEOof Drawing Room Concepts
12.      Ramen at Gin Sai. – Veronica Chou, president of Iconix China
13.      Nothing rivals my mom’s home cooking. Other than that, one of the best dishes I had was the spit-roasted pigeon at the legendary three-Michelin-starred Paul Bocuse Restaurant in Lyon. – Evan Chow, managing partner of MCLFinancial Group
14.      Il Milione’s spaghetti di Gragnano, a variation of carbonara with fish eggs, mullet roe, sea urchin, salmon roe and caviar. This is the perfect indulgent dish to have, particularly when I’m going through another one of my bouts of pescetarianism. – Tina Chu,senior account manager for SinclairCommunications
15.      Double-boiled whole chicken stuffed with bird’s nest in pig stomach. I am particularly fond of this classic dish because it represents the finest in exquisite Cantonese culinary craftmanship, combining the best Jinhua ham, premier pork and aged chicken with the well-known nutritional benefits of premier grade bird’s nest. – Chui Wai-kwan, managing director ofSeventh Son Restaurant
16.      Maria Bizri’s off-the-charts Lebanese sliced lamb shawarma in fresh Lebanese bread with a dollop of tahini sauce and tabouleh is mouth-watering. All the food she cooks from her new Pomegranate Kitchen in Aberdeen is sublime soul food and every delicious morsel is cooked from the heart. I dream about my next Pomegranate mouthful! – Mandy d’Abo, founder and director ofThe Cat Street Gallery
17.      A hard topic, but one of the best things I ate in 2013 was a fresh Hokkaido Taraba crab. A good friend started an import business from Japan, so she got us a fresh crab with scallops and uni, great to share among friends. Had a fun time preparing the meal and I guess it’s also the company too – good friends make eating more enjoyable. – CharleneDawes, managing director of TastingsGroup
18.      A dish I had this summer with my family at El Celler de Can Roca in Girona: served in a spectacular stainless-steel anemone, with a sauce of sea urchin in the bottom topped with sea cucumber intestines, edible anemone, goose-necked barnacle, longneck clams and various seaweeds and lime peel. The dish had an amazing play on textures and demonstrated an ultimate seafood taste with a pleasant acidity. – Richard Ekkebus, culinarydirector of The Landmark MandarinOriental, Hong Kong
19.      Hands down the sea urchin with fresh nori and aonori panko bread crumbs at Ronin. The sea urchin was extremely fresh, and tasted great with the flavours of nori and the crispness of the bread crumbs. I love the different textures and bold flavours. – Tony Ferreira, executivechef of La Vache!
20.      Hokkaido sea urchin in a lobster jell-O with cauliflower, caviar and crispy seaweed waffles is perhaps one of the most delicious things I have ever tasted. It’s a special dish from Amber and very popular. Love it! – Susan Field, CEO ofCohn & Wolfe-impactasia
21.      Seared red prawn in green-pea purée with Parmesan-cheese foam and pea shoot at Da Vittorio in Bergamo has been the best dish I tasted in 2013. The dish was about pure freshness and made me feel like I was in a garden smelling fresh green peas. – Peter Find, executive chef ofThe Ritz-Carlton, Hong Kong
22.      I remember best the Sole Fernand Point at Paul Bocuse’s restaurant L’Auberge du Pont de Collonges. It’s not only the flavour, but also the restaurant’s interior – and Bocuse himself coming to greet me – that made the whole dinner experience remarkable. The fish is so elegantly presented, and it was such an honour to sample the dish that’s made to pay tribute to Bocuse’s mentor. – Daniel Fong, general manager of JCGroup
23.      The uni wrapped in shiso leaves at Tempura Masa in Ginza was to me the perfect bite of 2013. It was a combination of two of my favourite ingredients and then deep-fried. Imagine the freshest, sweetest and creamiest of Hokkaido uni, combined with the distinctive fragrance of shiso, all encased in a light and crispy savoury batter on the outside, simply divine! – Nancy Fung,director of Signature Communications
24.      A simple very rare A12 Wagyu Kobe beef sirloin steak at Misono in Kobe, Japan. Incredibly creamy, it was literally melting on my tongue and the most amazing piece of meat that has ever entered my mouth. – Nicole Fung,founder of That Food Cray !!!
25.      A simple tossed pappardelle with braised artichoke hearts, edamame, asparagus, micro baby peas, wild mushrooms, fried parsley and good shavings of white truffle. The balance of everything was just right and it was a hearty yet healthy meal that I truly enjoyed. – Bonnae Gokson, founder ofSevva, Ms B’s Cakery and C’est La B
26.      Yellow-fin tuna carpaccio with crispy French baguette, foie gras, citrus dressing and micro sprouts at Le Bernardin. I had this when I was in New York earlier this year, and I was blown away. – Harlan Goldstein,managing director of World Wide DiningGroup
27.      Some of the best food that I had in 2013 was with my Jax Coco team at Chicha. The pisco sour is to die for and pairs so well with the ceviche, tacos Peru and generous sharing platters (try the Lomo Saltado). – Jane Gottschalk, founder ofJax Coco
28.      I love food, so I’ve eaten lots of tasty meals over the year. But I survived nearly exclusively on dry crackers for a few months during my first trimester of pregnancy earlier this year. And to me, that was the “best food” for months! – Mimi Gradel, director of BlindspotGallery
29.      Every year I go to Cape Town to pay a little visit to my home. One of my rituals is to go down to the beach with my father and we dive for oysters, mussels and crayfish; it’s without a doubt the freshest and most exciting way to eat seafood. The oysters we eat right there on the beach after the dive – all you need is a bottle of Tabasco and your dive knife. The rest we take home and cook on the barbecue. – Richard Green,marketing director of Miele Hong Kong
30.      Needing a little afternoon snack before going to the number-17 restaurant on the World’s 50 Best list, Pujol in Mexico City, we stumbled on a quaint cafe, Dulcinea Cocina Urbana. I stole a glance at a lady’s dish as we walked in and without menu stated “I want that” – a grilled whole artichoke with oregano sauce, chipotle sauce and smooth goat’s cheese. Ripping off the leaves and dipping them in the fragrant concoction was truly delicious. – Taryne Hall,founder and creative director of RelishKitchen
31.      I am a total dessert freak and my Mecca is Paris. Every time I’m there I make sure to try new patissiers and chocolatiers. My favourite (and most unexpected) this year was a Saint Honoré that came from department store Bon Marché, of all places – the choux pastry was crisp, the caramel crunchy and custard perfectly balanced. The chantilly was flecked with fresh Madagascar vanilla. – Divia Harilela,Prestige Hong Kong contributor
32.      On a visit to Bo Innovation earlier this year, I was offered the eight-treasure tea as a digestif and as a deconstructed dessert platter. Each of the eight components of the tea has its own unique flavour, but when combined, created flavours and aromas that were so complex, unlike anything I’ve tried before. It was so interesting that it inspired me to create a macaron based on the flavours of the tea. – PierreHermé, macaroon maestro
33.      Reconnected with my roots in Manila recently, and forgot how delicious our breakfasts are: fried garlic rice with longaniza (Filipino sausage), fried egg and papaya salad (known as atsara). – Shirley Hiranand, co-founder anddirector of Bonvivant & Bellavita
34.      One of my favourites is Bloom’s blackboard steak offer – the 100-day dry-aged USDA prime bone-in rib eye is awesome for sharing with good friends, over a bottle of champagne – or two, or three… – Denise Ho, stylist
35.      I’m always in awe of the honey-glazed barbecue pork (char siu) from Grand Hyatt’s One Harbour Road. Perfect texture with a balanced amount of fat and flavours – it never disappoints. – Jaime Ho Ku, managing partner ofBuzz Concepts
36.      My friend and I were about to take a four-hour train ride from Saitama to Akashi to visit whisky distilleries and, naturally, decided to load up on snacks at the train station. Two of the items were a pork tonkatsu sandwich and a canned Kaku highball. Sitting on that train, watching the Japanese landscape, and eating this delicious katsu sandwich accompanied by a cold whisky and soda is something that can’t be replicated in any restaurant around the world, and was definitely one of the best food experiences I’ve had this year. – RaphaelHolzer, general manager of Yardbird andRonin
37. This year I discovered the Veggie Sushi Bar from Stephen James Organics as well as the Aloha Chiller (coconut water, pineapple and acai berry) from Be-Juiced to be two of the best things that I’ve consumed. Now I carry these two items with me every day as they provide me with the natural energy needed for before and after my daily training. – Belinda Khoo, founder of XYZCycling Studio
38. The traditional yook hwe receives an inventive makeover at nouvelle Korean spot Jungsik in New York. Wagyu tartare, wild sesame rice, fried seaweed, perilla, oyster croutons and an egg yolk cooked sous vide – basically everything good and holy in the world of edibles, all in one bowl. Why it’s no longer on the menu is to me one of life’s greatest mysteries. – Christina Ko, deputy editorof Prestige Hong Kong
39. I went for dinner at Wagyu Kaiseki Den in October, and their tasting menu that night featured their signature dishes as the final hurrah. Called Sea Urchin Black Truffle Rice, it was creamy, smoky and very rich. All in all, a little piece of heaven in a bowl and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since! – Fiona Kotur-Marin, founder and creative director ofKotur
40.      I enjoyed very much the flower crab with uni at the Japanese-inspired eatery Ronin in Sheung Wan. The dish has a wonderful mixture of flavours and textures. – Wolfgang Krueger, vice-presidentand general manager of theIsland Shangri-La Hong Kong
41.      My five-year-old daughter Briar and I baked a vanilla sponge cake together a few months back. Now, I’m probably a bit biased, but it was the best thing I had all year! – Benedict Ku, creative directorof Buzz Concepts
42.      I went to Napa last month and went to Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc. They have a section that serves boxed lunches called Addendum. That buttermilk fried chicken was definitely one of the best lunches I had all year. I’m still trying to recreate that recipe. – Calvin Ku, F&Bdirector of Buzz Concepts
43.      I am thinking of my favourite spot in Brooklyn called Lucali. I go there quite often (not as much as before since I’m on a strict high-vegetable regime) and the pizzas in my opinion are the best in town. While hanging out there with my wine friend Stephen Fallango, we did a rundown of great wood-fired choices – but to my surprise Mark Iacono brought us the most amazing Nutella calzone. Certainly one of my favourites for 2013. – Gray Kunz, chef
44.      A Chaource cheese brought by a friend and fellow writer to another friend and fellow writer’s birthday party. As she cut through the rind, the cheese spilled creamy goodness and had to be mopped up with oodles of the host’s (also excellent) fresh home-baked bread. – Elle Kwan, Prestige Hong Kongcontributor
45.      The best I had so far was this blue French lobster done at a friend’s place. No other lobster species can compare to it. It was simply boiled in water and that was it. Crisp texture with a fresh sweet taste from the ocean. – Simson Kwan,senior executive chef at m.a.x. concepts
46.      On a trip to the Champagne region in France, I had langoustine paired with Louis Roederer Brut Rosé 2008 in a three-Michelin-starred restaurant called A Lallement. The langoustine was seasoned with some salt and pepper and slightly seared to perfection, the meat was incredibly tender and succulent, and it went perfectly well with the champagne. – Gary Kwok, group generalmanager of Ambrosia Cuisines
47.      The best thing I had was homemade ice cream made by my twin boys. – RonaldKwok, vice president at JP Morgan
48.      One highlight for me was the beetroot ravioli at Doppio Zero – the colour looked unusual for ravioli but the taste wasn’t disappointing at all. – DennisLai, art director of Prestige Hong Kong
49.      A dish of fagottelli carbonara from La Pergola in Rome. It’s the Italian version of xiao long bao: the carbonara sauce, which is quite soupy and not too creamy, is stuffed inside the “pasta dumplings” rather than mixed with the pasta. What a creative version of such a staple of Italian comfort food! – Vincenzo La Torre, deputy editor ofPrestige Hong Kong
50.      My fave was the rib-eye steak at The Steak House at the InterContinental Hong Kong – yum, yummy, yum. – Gordon Lam, associate publisher andcreative director of Prestige Hong Kong
51.      For an Autumn kaiseki dinner, RyuGin’s Chef Yamamoto insisted on sourcing ingredients in Hong Kong to highlight the prodigality of our natural environment. The Kuruma prawn and truffle dumpling was paired with thickened sauce of ham dan (salted egg) made with dashi stock for a dish both thoughtful and avant-garde. – VickyLau, chef-owner of Tate Dining Room
52.      Lard. Yes, lard at Prat. It was a bread spread made with lard that tasted so good. The spread had a very interesting touch with some crispy pancetta bites inside, which gave it a different texture. – Lau Yiu-fai, executive chef of Yan TohHeen
53.      Summer barbecue at my sister’s house in Narragansett, Rhode Island. Fresh-from-the-ocean lobsters, rib-eye steaks and, best of all, vegetables picked from the garden out in the back yard: corn, Swiss chard, tomatoes and asparagus. – Jeffrey LeBon, executive chef of Cvche
54.      Guacamole with sea urchin, aka Thebomb.com, at Petty Cash in Los Angeles. This taqueria place knows how to mix traditional with contemporary ingredients. – Jamie Lee, co-founder ofCrossFit 852
55.      The most memorable foods that have entered my belly in 2013 are the otoro from Sushi Sora at the Mandarin Oriental Tokyo and the duck and waffle from Duck & Waffle London. It was orgasmic! – Edmon Leong, contributing photographer for Prestige Hong Kong
56.      The best thing I ate this year was a cucumber dish at Attica. The cucumbers were slightly pickled and complemented by holy flax, yogurt and burnet, a herb I had never tasted until that evening. The whole dish was a perfect balance of everything that matters in eating – from the gustatory basics of flavor and texture, to intellectual considerations of provenance and creativity – it whispered genius rather than shouted it on top of Melbourne’s foodist rooftops. – Janice Leung Hayes, food writerand founder of Hong Kong MarketsOrganisation
57.      The egg balls at Benedict in Tel Aviv. Best. Invention. Ever. – Tina Leung,stylist
58.      The best dish I had in 2013 is the roasted kid my mother-in-law [Brescian chef Mary Piscini] cooked for me for last Easter. It was simply perfect. – PhilippeLéveillé, executive chef of l’Altro HongKong and Miramonti l’Altro in Brescia,Italy
59.      Either the vongole pasta at Da Paolino in Capri, or Sunday brunch at The Principal in Hong Kong. – Antonia Li,socialite
60.      The consistently excellent tasting menu at Kitchen Table at Bubbledogs in London. The 12-course menu varies daily depending on the local produce chef James Knappett manages to acquire. I always highly recommend this restaurant to all my friends who visit London, but be sure to book in advance. – Valerie Liang, socialite
61.      The US pork neck with kuei hua flavoured pear and chinkiang vinegar at Man Wah. One of my favourite dishes before moving to Hong Kong was the classic sweet and sour pork, but this takes it to the next level. The tenderness of the pork, alongside the crunchiness of the pear and the wonderful sauce that it is cooked in makes me only want to eat more and more – I order it every time I visit Man Wah. – Greg Liddell, generalmanager of The Landmark MandarinOriental, Hong Kong
62.      I had the best frozen espresso at the Burda Bar in our Munich head office this year. It’s the only place I know where you can get shots of frozen espresso served by two very charming Italian brothers, Sebastiano and Francesco, in between budget meetings. – Anne Lim Chaplain, managing directorand publisher of Prestige Hong Kong
63.      Grilled French sea bass with handmade gnocchi and orange-rosemary butter, baby carrot, asparagus and green peas, by Jeffrey LeBon at Cvche, which I paired with a Sauvignon Blanc by Dog Point that I brought because Jeffrey waived corkage! – Gerrie Lim, PrestigeHong Kong wine contributor
64.      Rice pudding at Chez l’Ami Jean in Paris. I never eat rice pudding but it was just amazing – flavour, balance, texture – divine! – Alan Lo, co-founder of PressRoom Group
65.      I feel very blessed living in Hong Kong and spending time each year in France and in Thailand. In all of these places, the food is wonderful and varied. It’s not easy to decide on the best thing I ate for 2013 but it has to be the Shanghai hairy crab dinner. Why? I only allow myself this delicacy once a year because of its cholesterol-inducing effect. The anticipation is wonderful; I love extracting the meat and the coral, and the taste is so delicate. I also enjoy putting the bits and pieces of the crab back into its empty shell – this is what the connoisseurs do at the end of the meal. – Sally Lo, founder and chief executive of the Hong Kong Cancer Fund
66.      Chez HarvEst – my own menu! “Tout a Tartare” with ikura, umibudo and caviar, served with a Petrus 1985 vintage to celebrate my 19th wedding anniversary. – Esther Ma, CEO of Prestique
67.      Definitely the barbecued suckling pig from Seventh Son Restaurant. It’s in my head almost every day now, so you can imagine how yummy it was. – Helen Ma,director of Le Spa Evidens and Evidensde Beauté Hong Kong
68.      Burrata con bottarga from Olivomare in London. – Bertrand Mak, Asia brandpartner, Rupert Sanderson
69.      Pork belly with fennel, black garlic and calamari at Ikarus in Salzburg, Austria. – Sebrina Mak, associate publisher ofPrestige Hong Kong
70.      Line-caught sea bass with thinly sliced artichoke hearts in an Oscietra gold caviar beurre blanc sauce from L’Ambroisie in Paris. The sea bass, while light in taste, is delicate, flaky, soft and silky. The caviar, in optical collusion with the fish’s own shimmering skin, added a layer of complexity and elevated the beurre blanc. It was sweet, salty, buttery, subtly acidic and nutty. I cannot think of another sauce that could complement the fish and the artichoke hearts so well. One of the best fish dishes I’ve ever tasted. – Jeffrey Mui,owner of The Drawing Room
71.     Bone marrow at L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon in Singapore. My friend was ordering, and I didn’t know what was coming. As I took the first bite the flavour just exploded in my mouth. Combined with the crispy toast texture, it totally caught me by surprise. – Oyvind Naesheim, executive chef ofNobu at InterContinental Hong Kong
72.      In San Francisco’s Fisherman Wharf, at a restaurant called Waiheke Island Yacht Club, [my wife] Taryne and I had without doubt the best French toast ever – in a Kiwi restaurant in America. How weird, eh? It came with crème fraiche and peaches. – Fabrizio Napolitano, chef
73.      Home cooking is the best comfort food, and especially our crab cakes made with fresh crabs from Sam Shing Hui Seafood Market. My mom de-shells the crab and does all the hard work, which makes me feel extra warm and fuzzy inside. – Virginia Ngai, co-founder ofSpark Studios
74.      The best thing I ate in 2013 is Qi House of Sichuan’s chilli chicken. I have an addiction to spicy food! – Doris Ngie, cofounderof Backroom
75.      I remember having the omakase course from Ronin at the beginning of the year, featuring Kagoshima beef, maitake with an egg yolk in the middle, sprinkled with fried garlic. The beef is semi-raw and melts in your mouth! – Pinky Ngie,co-founder of Backroom
76.      Spicy chicken or acorn jelly salad from Sorabol Korean Restaurant in Causeway Bay. Whenever I have this sudden urge and craving for hot and spicy food, I have to drop everything to run over there and eat spicy chicken – and acorn jelly salad helps to cool my burning tongue afterwards. –Rachel Park-Monballiu, socialite
77.      A platter of freshly caught clams and sea urchin in Mykonos this summer which turned into a daily treat. Served with nothing but virgin olive oil, the taste of the sea and some ice. – WendyPuyat, designer
78.      The best thing I ate was birthday cake with frosting and ice cream. That’s my favourite thing, any time, every year! – Dee Poon, chief executive officer, ChinaRetail, Esquel Group
79.      Häagen-Dazs’ limited-edition Salted Caramel ice cream brought me more joy than my first-born did. And I say that mostly because I don’t have children, and yet the nourishment, love and joy I felt must be along those similar lines. – P Ramakrishnan, Prestige HongKong contributor
80.      The racan pigeon feuilleté at Caprice. It’s set against foie gras and nori seaweed, with lemon marmalade and a dose of sweet potato and lime turnip in a warm vinaigrette. The side dishes come cooked inside a pastry shell, but they burst open with flavour – very tender and juicy. I found it unique because it’s not yet another sea urchin, caviar, Kobe or Wagyu beef dish where you pay top dollar to get the best. – John Rana, CEOof Privé Group
81.      Kangaroo steak at the BellBrook Bistro Oz by David Laris. The meat was very lean but tender, it was tasty and not gamey at all compared to venison or ostrich. – Caroline Roberts, socialite
82.      A reworked version of sticky-date pudding, which I hadn’t had for years. It’s one of my favourite childhood treats, and earlier this year our home chef surprised me with a version with less sugar. – Kim Robinson, hairstylist
83.      Chef’s oysters: oysters with dashi jelly, lemon cream and passion fruit bubbles, from chef Arron Rhodes of Dot Cod. – Arkadiusz Rybak, bar manager ofzuma Hong Kong
84.      I had the best bowl of udon in Osaka at Kamatake Udon. Silky udon with a great chewy texture and doughy flour. The noodles speak volumes of the passion of owner Kida-san, as he kneads them all himself. Served in a tasty broth with some abura age, it’s heaven in a bowl. – Kevin Shih, co-ownerof Doppio Zero
85.      I love to eat croissants for breakfast and I also love to eat doughnuts at any time of the day. I ate them all the time whenever I visited my girls in New York. Back then I didn’t about care the hazards of eating too many. Recently my son Eugene introduced me to cronuts – one day he came home with some from Swissbeck, and I love them – but I eat them in moderation. – Susan Sng, ownerof Xposure PR & Marketing
86.      The Tartufo at Panino Giusto. Truffle oil, aged Parma ham and melty brie – what’s not to love? – MandySoh, assistant director of marketingcommunications for Hotel Icon
87.      It has to be my trip to Tokyo early this year and the wonderful omakase at Sukiyabashi Jiro. Prior to the trip I watched the documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi, and too bad it was too late to book the Ginza main branch, but I had a chance to try out Jiro’s son’s branch at Roppongi, which was absolutely wonderful. But I’m absolutely going to make it to Jiro-san’s main branch very soon! – Susanna Soo, founder anddesigner of S.Nine by Susanna Soo
88.      Without a doubt, the best thing I’ve eaten in 2013 is a panino from Panino Giusto in Italy – I loved it so much, we brought the franchise to Hong Kong! – Candice Suen, director of Bite Limited
89.      A lunch at Jean-Georges on Central Park West in New York last spring. I met two great friends – interior architect Adam Tihany and Nathan Slate Joseph, one of our gallery artists. They’re both great friends of the chef, Jean-Georges Vongerichten. We started with a bottle of champagne and ended with a chocolate soufflé served by the chef himself. In between I had yellowfin tuna with a ginger marinade, black sea bass and risotto. Bliss. – Sundaram Tagore,founder of Sundaram Tagore Gallery
90.      Breakfast on the roof of a sun-bleached riad at the Royal Mansour in Marrakech. I had amlou, a delicious spread made of toasted almonds, wild honey and argan oil on a freshly baked croissant. – Payal Uttam, Prestige HongKong contributor
91.      The simple things are often the best. Early this year, when staying at Mas de Torrent, a small hotel in Catalonia, a barbecue was held in the garden, featuring local lamb, fish, seafood and sausage. It was all superb, but the pungent, smoky flavour that’s still seared onto my memory was of the botifarra negra (blood sausage), which was so good I went back for more again and again – or at least until my evident greed got rather embarrassing. – JonWall, editor of Prestige Hong Kong
92.      The paella from Quemo in QRE Plaza. It’s one of the most authentic this side of Valencia, Spain. – Adrian Wong, luxurybrand PR and marketing manager forAsia Pacific
93.      I just had the best seafood paella at Entraguas in Barcelona. You know it’s good when you go home still thinking about it. – Tracy Wong, owner of ChilliFagara
94.      Best seafood dish I’ve had this year is at the North Point seafood market. I love getting the sea snails with seven different types of alcohol in them and cooked in a spicy broth with salty and sweet flavours from the juice inside the shells. Perfect with a cold beer while you wait for your mains! – Malcolm Wood, culinarydirector of Maximal Concepts
95.      I ate so many things this year, as my husband and I are really foodies – sometimes we just travel to a certain place to go and eat a particular dish or try a specific chef. One of my favourites is a puff pastry overflowing with foie gras and big, big slices of black truffle from Chef Mathieu Pacaud at L’Ambroisie in Paris. – Deborah Valdez-Hung, chairman of Dreamodels
96.      Pork cheeks with pickled nectarines and corn velouté at The Rabbit Stash in Singapore. We often eat food that is somewhat over-invested in technique. At The Rabbit Stash, this husband-and-wife team serves amazing food with a great deal of technique but also a great deal of honesty. Tastes super duper awesome. – Christian Yang, chef
97.      The best dish I had this year was Sushi Kuu’s Wagyu rice burger. Topped with a slice of cheese and with the beef sandwiched between two rice cakes, it’s the ultimate comfort food and always puts a smile on my face. The coolest thing I’ve eaten this year, though, is Story in London’s beef-dripping candle. You basically light a candle made from beef dripping and when it melts, you dip your bread in it instead of using butter. – Caryn Yap, director of PR & marketingfor Catalunya Hong Kong
98.      I love the stir-fried hairy crab roe at Shanghai Kiangsu Chekiang and Shanghai Resident (HK) Association Restaurant, colloquially known as “So Jeet”. Easy choice given that it’s everything great about hairy crab – the roe, the meat is all out, de-shelled and stir-fried into a beautiful golden yellow plate of flavour bursting at every bite. The richness of the roe and the sweetness of the crab complement each other so well. – Derrick Yee, consultantfor Privé Group
99.      Hairy crabs from Shanghai, yum! – Jimmy Yu, society editor of PrestigeHong Kong
100.    A home-made bowl of wontons, Shanghainese style. This filling recipe has been revised by my mom, who emphasises a higher proportion of vegetables than meat. The meat she uses is a mix of both pork and beef to make these wontons even tastier. More importantly, as I’ve been working in China for more than six years and returning home to Hong Kong only two to three times a year, these wontons are filled with care from a mother to her son. – Philip Yu, generalmanager of Grand Hyatt Hong Kong
 
+Prestige Hong Kong

From his childhood sketches of Cultural Revolution propaganda figures to his experimental work with ink, Chinese artist ZHANG YU has always challenged tradition. PAYAL UTTAM meets him at a French chateau
DEEP IN THE FRENCH countryside in the medieval town of Cognac, Chinese artist Zhang Yu is at work in a dimly lit cellar. Crouched on the floor, he pours eau de vie into numerous porcelain bowls meticulously arranged in rows on the floor. His movements are slow and meditative. Towering over him are giant oak barrels and the air is thick with the perfume of liquor.
“This used to be the marriage room, a very busy area with people emptying barrels and blending cognacs from the 1900s until 1986,” whispers Jacques Menier, heritage director of Martell & Co, as the artist continues his silent ritual. Today, the cellar is part of a museum devoted to Martell, one of the oldest cognac houses in France. Normally, this area is forbidden to visitors, but the brand has made an exception for Zhang. By the time he has finished, the floor is blanketed with pools of glistening golden liquid. Beneath each bowl is a blue fingerprint, Zhang’s trademark.
Known for his abstract paintings composed of thousands of fingerprints, Zhang is one of the most important artists of his generation. Widely credited as a founder of the experimental ink movement, he broke with tradition by abandoning his brush in the early 1990s, sending shockwaves through the Chinese art world. Today he’s internationally recognised not only for his dramatic paintings but also for performances involving ink.
A long-time patron of the arts, Martell gave Zhang carte blanche to come up with a site-specific work in the heart of Cognac. With the recent fervour surrounding ink painting in the contemporary art market, the brand’s choice of artist comes as no surprise. Besides taking over the sprawling cellar, Zhang created a second installation in Château de Chanteloup, Martell’s private estate. Surrounded by vineyards, the 16th-century property is open to guests by invitation only.
When we meet the next day in the estate’s living room, Zhang is perched on a yellow armchair by an ornately decorated fireplace. Classical European landscape paintings in rococo frames hang on the walls behind him and sunlight streams through the French windows. Dressed in a black shirt with a Chinese collar and oval spectacles sitting low on his nose, the artist has a professorial air. He has just finished pouring the last drops of blue ink into hundreds of cognac glasses laid out across the foyer next door. The installation is a reference to ink painting, one of the oldest forms of Chinese art.
“When I first saw a photograph of the chateau, I immediately thought how could I bring a lot of ink into this place, as much as possible,” he says gleefully like a child given free reign of a castle. “People think it’s a commercial project, but I wanted to take a challenge,” continues Zhang, turning serious. “This is not for fashion, not for a commercial brand. It’s about a crossover between two different cultures.” In filling bulbous cognac glasses with Chinese ink in the chateau, and Chinese bowls with a French spirit in the cellar, he created a dialogue between East and West.
The works grew out of his ink ceremonies performed in Hong Kong, Korea and Taiwan this year involving a similar set-up of pouring ink. Asked from where he got his inspiration, he grins. “When you watch Chinese movies in the old days, there would be a few men trying to create a brotherhood and sense of camaraderie using these big bowls of Chinese wine for a ceremony,” he says, holding an imaginary vessel to his lips. “A ceremony is meant to be understood and accepted by the masses. It’s not just me doing something for myself.”
Zhang’s obsession with ink began when he was young. Growing up in Tianjin during the Cultural Revolution, he remembers copying propaganda posters on the streets at the age of seven. “When I went out I saw propaganda figures like Lin Biao. I just had a pen and drew what I saw. I did portraits in a cartoon style.” His parents were keen for him to become an artist and encouraged him to keep drawing. By the time he completed university the revolution was over. “After the opening of modern China, I wanted to make a breakthrough and exceed tradition,” he recalls.
Like many of his peers, Zhang began using Western painting techniques. He became fascinated by surrealism and created haunting figurative images. Yet he soon realised he wasn’t using his own voice. “I had a serious internal struggle,” he says. “After that period of frustration in 1991, I decided to get rid of the brush and began to use my fingerprint.” Making this decision wasn’t easy for an artist so entrenched in tradition. “Many other artists couldn’t understand or face the reality of what I suddenly did,” muses Zhang.
Failing to receive recognition or support for his new works, he felt compelled to pick up his brush once again – but this time the results were extraordinary. He began to create abstract works collectively called the Divine Light series, dense black paintings shot through with light, evoking the cosmos. “At the time a very famous critic called Zhu Qi described it as the explosion of the universe,” says Zhang. “It stunned the world.” Several critics hailed this, the beginning of the experimental ink painting movement, as a milestone in Chinese art history.
However, Zhang wasn’t satisfied. “The glory that Divine Light brought to me was just a process; it wasn’t my direction.” Unable to let go of his original idea from the early 1990s, he began dipping his fingers in ink in 2001, filling scroll after scroll of paper with a multitude of marks.
As the works grew in scale, he began experimenting with installations in which finger-painted scrolls hung from the ceiling and unfurled across the floor of an entire room. In other works he eliminated ink, making more sculptural drawings where he used water to create indentations on xuan paper covering entire surfaces with small craters. I ask, what runs through his mind when he is making these obsessive works? “Emptiness. Everything has to be unloaded,” he replies, explaining that it’s a Zen-like process.
Despite his recent experiments with performance and installation, his fingerprint series, which he began more than a decade ago, remains at the core of his practice. Why is he so fixated? “A great artist has to develop a unique language,” he says emphatically. Looking at the Western art world, Zhang says many artists have forged their own language using different media and achieved success. “However, the traditional Chinese art world only offers one single method, the ink brush. So many artists spend their whole lives working with ink. They all want to find a way to push through tradition and find their own language – I have a sense of responsibility as well.”
What do his parents think of him now that he’s become a successful artist? “I think all parents hope that their children develop their career and follow a good path, but for me I keep declining, rejecting, redefining myself and doing new things,” he says. “They ask, ‘Why don’t you just find something that makes you comfortable and earn money?’ ” Gesturing at the ink installation next door he laughs and adds, “They would say, ‘No one will collect this. Even the ink is something you can’t drink.’ ”
Zhang however, remains unfazed. “Art is about creating a new perspective. You may not be able to drink the ink, but it’s beautiful, with aesthetic value that people will appreciate and even worship, like they do cognac. This is the goal of the artist.” A restless spirit, his sole objective is to continue breaking new ground in the history of Chinese ink painting. “It’s meaningful to take this challenge and show your uniqueness,” he says. “I don’t know what’s next, but I’m always true to myself and I hope that I can leave something meaningful behind.”

VERA WANG, KEE CLUB; OCTOBER 21
Prestige Hong Kong partnered with Perrier Jouët to hold an exclusive dinner for fashion designer Vera Wang at Kee Club on October 21 to celebrate her first visit to Hong Kong in more than 20 years. In a magical secret garden decorated by Berge Studio, 40 stylish ladies enjoyed a private dinner.
The evening started with a cocktail session on the first floor of Kee Club, where guests got to mingle and catch up. Prestige Hong Kong’s Gordon Lam welcomed Wang on stage to share her fashion memories before the three-course dinner, which provided delectable pairings of Perrier-Jouët Belle-Époque Rosé 2004 and Perrier Jouët Belle-Époque with gourmet dishes from Kee’s ovens.
Guests included singer Karen Mok, models Kathy Chow, Cara G, Ana R, Lisa S and Irene Wang, and socialites Audry Ai Morrow, Yolanda Choy Tang, Reyna Harilela, Ming Ho, Angie Ting, Tansy Tom, Leigh Tung and Marisa Zeman-McConnell.
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‘Tis the season to indulge (and avoid making a huge mess in the kitchen). In this week’s online exclusive, SHEENA K introduces three chic establishments to make reservations at this Christmas and New Years…
CATALUNYA
Enjoy signature dishes from the crème de la crème of Spain’s chefs right here in the ‘Kong. Catalunya will be hosting a fabulous series of dinner and brunch events this Christmas and New Years. The restaurant’s Christmas Day brunch promises plenty of festive fun with authentic Catalan dishes and if you have kids in tow, they’ll be able to take part in “Tio the Tree”, a special Spanish tradition to win Christmas pressies. For serious party-goers who want to avoid the crowds, book a table at Catalunya’s New Year’s Eve dinner bash, where you can taste traditional Spanish dishes with a wine-pairing option. The party continues from 11pm-2am with an open bar, DJ from Spain and dancing. Shuttle buses will be available from 1am to take guests to the Central area, so you don’t have to search frantically for a cab. Those who pre-buy the dinner, wine pairing and open bar stand a chance to win a copy of elBulli 1994-1997, five of which have been autographed by legendary chef Ferran Adria. Psst: For those in need of a major recovery meal on January 1, Catalunya will be serving it’s New Year’s Recovery Brunch, where you’ll feast on oysters and delicious brunch favourites. Salud!
Tel: (852) 2562 6700
 
TENKU RYUGIN
Celebrate Christmas and New Year’s Eve with a traditional Japanese twist. Dining guests at Tenku RyuGin can enjoy the stunning view from the 101st  floor of the ICC and sample the best kaiseki dinner menu in town in which only the best ingredients from Japan will be used. Specialties include: premium sea urchin from Hokkaido and hot egg custard with black truffle. Don’t miss Tenku RyuGin’s special Snowdome dessert, which will be served on December 24 and 25 only. And if you’re still searching for a perfect Christmas gift for that special someone, pick up some Fall in Love tea, RyuGin’s special blended tea packaged in a wine bottle exclusively from Japan. Just remember to serve them this gorgeous aromatic tea in a wine glass.
Tel: (852) 2302 0222
 
LILY & BLOOM
For an extravagant festive meal, make your way over to Lily & Bloom, right in the heart of Central. Christmas dinner includes blackboard specials and a whole turkey (to be ordered three days in advance). On December 24 and 25, you’ll receive a complimentary glass of Veuve Clicquot, mulled wine or eggnog with your dinner, and a visit from St Nick, too. Christmas Day brunch includes freshly made savoury delicacies, a complimentary glass of Veuve Clicquot and if you’re lucky, a present. On New Year’s Eve, dress to your sultriest best and follow Lily & Bloom to the Moulin Rouge to experience the glittering debauchery of historical Paris. Get ready for shots of Absinthe, stunning courtesans, artists of the night and other mysterious revelries.
Tel: (852) 2801 6166
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ERMENEGILDO ZEGNA
Italian menswear powerhouse Ermenegildo Zegna got a jump start on the new season with the unveiling of its spring/ summer 2014 campaign and first Zegna Couture collection at a grand event in Los Angeles, which also celebrated the opening of the brand’s new Peter Marino-designed boutique on Rodeo Drive. It’s the first collection by recently appointed creative director Stefano Pilati, who oversaw the ad images featuring Irish heartthrob Jamie Dorman, the star of the much-awaited film version of Fifty Shades of Grey.
Well-dressed gents such as Gerard Butler, Edward Norton, Jeremy Renner and Joe Jonas, all sporting sharp Ermenegildo Zegna suits, joined family scions Gildo and Anna Zegna at the Rodeo Drive space before being shuttled to the after-party held at the JF Chen gallery, where more Hollywood types, including a ravishing Sharon Stone, showed up to congratulate Pilati on his first effort at the maison.
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VINCENZO LA TORRE sits down with model, actress and now filmmaker ELISA SEDNAOUI to talk fashion, cinema and Egyptian politics
CERTAIN GIRLS JUST have It. You may not be able to name them off the top of your head, but as soon as you see them gracing the front rows at fashion shows, the party pages of style glossies and the most glamorous bashes in town, you can tell right away that they’re not your average PYTs.
Good looks and lithe figures notwithstanding, there’s much more to the so-called It factor: a certain nonchalance, ease with clothes and effortless je ne sais quoi that can turn a mere girl about town into a bona-fide style setter. Add to that a jet-set upbringing, a multi-ethnic background and friends in high places, and you’ve got the perfect recipe for what makes an It girl.
Elisa Sednaoui, the half-Italian, half-Egyptian model and actress who grew up between Paris and Cairo, is the embodiment of the multi-hyphenate talented girl with impeccable style to match and a prime spot on the European social circuit. Sednaoui, whose godfather is none other than shoe master Christian Louboutin – for whom her father, an architect, designed a house in Luxor – has recently taken a break from the party scene to look after her newborn child (her partner, Alex Dellal, brother of Alice and Charlotte, also hails from a family that has spawned its fair share of It girls) and to focus on her film career.
She recently directed a poignant documentary about her Egyptian homeland, Kullu Taman (Everything is Good), her first endeavour behind the camera. At an outing during this year’s Venice Film Festival, which she attended to present a film in which she starred, Sednaoui, who’s close to Swiss watchmaker Jaeger-LeCoultre, the festival’s main sponsor, sat down for a chat before getting ready for a glamorous premiere at the famous Lido.
Model, actress and now director. What do you like the most?
I wouldn’t be satisfied doing only one thing and I love each for different reasons. Directing the documentary was the strongest thing I’ve ever done because I was involved from a personal point of view, since Egypt is a very important country for me and because I was behind the camera.
What was the main challenge?
It’s already hard to shoot a regular film with all the last-minute changes, but with a documentary there are even more unexpected things because you’re filming reality, so you don’t know what’s going to happen.
What’s your opinion about the current situation there?
Egypt is a very important part of my life. It’s now undergoing a process towards what is going to be their kind of democracy, which will never be a Western one. We can’t impose our canons of democracy on a country that is trying to find its own space. To achieve the goal, there will be many mistakes, but they will learn from them. I’m hopeful that something good will happen. You can’t create a democracy in one day. After the revolution started, the people learned a lot and formed a political opinion, which never existed before. It’s what happened in France. How long did it take before France got liberté, egalité and fraternité?
You grew up in France but your background is also Italian and Egyptian. Where do you feel more at home?
I’m a mixture of all three, because I lived in all three and I’m very close to each culture, so I’m kind of an amalgam. The hot blood and the romanticism of the Mediterranean are mixed with a certain French cynicism, which you always need.
How important is fashion to you and what do you make of the phenomenon of the red carpet?
It’s an important element of my job and thanks to that I can concentrate on more serious projects like the documentary and my foundation. In the end, I believe that the way you dress, both in private and in public, is an extension of who you are. I know that your personality and your brain are more important but the way you appear is what people see first and influences the way they perceive you. However, when I’m in situations in which a dress doesn’t show up or needs a last-minute alteration and so on, I always try to take it easy and not to turn it into a big drama. When people get stressed about such things, I realise that it’s not worth it, especially after you have a child.
Were you always into fashion, even as a child?
When I was a teenager in Egypt I used to go to markets to buy yards of fabrics and imitate my mother, who was a designer. I would ask my neighbour to sew them into clothes. Christian would tell my dad, joking, “Your daughter is so glamorous,” but I never did it with that intention. I just had fun trying different things. I was mainly looking at my mum, who instinctively loved classic and timeless pieces and was never obsessed with buying too much.
What about your personal style?
I love buying pieces that, when you wear them in the morning, you know it works and you don’t have to think too much about them. I’m quite repetitive: when I like something, like a song, I keep playing it over again and it’s the same with clothes.
How did your relationship with Jaeger-LeCoultre start and develop?
The relationship started with my first film and I developed it here in Venice over many years. They always support artists and filmmakers, talented people. I feel that creative people inspire others and vice versa. Everywhere you go, things are changing. With the Internet and social media, people can finance movies in different ways. There’s so much stuff out there that is bad quality, so it’s important to support talent and creativity.
Finally, can you tell me about your foundation?
During my pregnancy I decided to establish a foundation that focuses on extracurricular education like music, acting, crafts...It’s a way for children to learn having fun and dreaming. I want to create a branch in Luxor because children there start working when they’re very young and they shouldn’t worry about money at such a young age. This generation will change Egypt, so I want to open their mind. I don’t want them all to be artists but it’s great for them to be exposed to this kind of thing. They’re going to be agents of change so I want to contribute to that.

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CHANEL, OCA MUSEUM, PARQUE DO IBIRAPUERA, SAO PAULO; OCTOBER 29
On October 29 at the OCA Museum, Parque do Ibirapuera in Sao Paulo, in the presence of Karl Lagerfeld, Chanel inaugurated the exhibition The Little Black Jacket: Chanel’s Classic Revisited by Karl Lagerfeld and Carine Roitfeld. The display, installed over all floors of the museum, showcased more than 100 photographs including 21 new images depicting celebrities and other personalities wearing the iconic piece, lensed by Karl Lagerfeld and selected from the book The Little Black Jacket.
Joining Lagerfeld and Roitfeld at the opening were guests Diane Kruger, Joshua Jackson, Alice Dellal, Laura Neiva, Caroline de Maigret and Leigh Lezark, just to name a few. The highlight of the evening was a performance by British songstress M.I.A., who got the crowd dancing.
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