We walk the dawn market, carry back what the growers cut that morning, and cook it before noon.
Buy close, cook plainly, season with patience.
The grower does most of the work before we ever light the wok. Our job is to choose well in the morning and then get out of the way.
The Chairman keeps a short walk and a long memory. Before the city wakes our buyers cross the harbour to the wet markets and the New Territories farms, then carry back baskets of whatever the growers cut that day. We do not chase rare ingredients flown from far away. We chase the ones cut this morning by people we have known for years. The kitchen treats that produce plainly and with respect, the way a Cantonese home cook would, then sharpens it with house ferments, charcoal, and a clean hand. Nothing leaves the pass without a name behind it.
One short walk, from the stall to the wok.
The dawn buy
Every service starts at the market, not the stove. Two buyers split the wet market stalls and the farm runs, texting photographs back to the kitchen, and the menu is set only once the baskets are in.
Plain fire
A row of wok burners and one charcoal grill do almost all of it. We add little, wait often, and let the produce taste of the soil and water it came from rather than of the kitchen.
The ferment shelf
Along the back wall sit jars of preserved citrus peel, salted plum, fermented bean, and chilli paste laid down by season. They are how we hold a flavour from one market run into the next.
We keep a short list of people, and we keep it for a long time.
Flower crab and grey mullet from the day boats, picked before the stall fills and carried back live.
Choy sum, gai lan, and garden chive cut at first light, often still wet when they reach the kitchen.
Slow-grown yellow chicken and pigeon, raised on open ground, never more than a few birds a day.
Hand-cured duck leg, sweet sausage, and preserved mustard greens laid down by an old family recipe.
Aged tangerine peel and single-bush oolong, some of it rested longer than the restaurant has been open.
From the market to the room.
The menu reads like a market receipt, and that is exactly the point.
The market opens at dawn. The table is yours at night.