Approaching our table with a wide grin, Kim Liu plops down in a chair at Sui Xuan, his chef’s whites gleaming and crackling with starch in the midday light. The man exudes an imposing but pleasant demeanor as he takes his toque off and begins to fan himself. In between fending off the midday heat, he begins to tell the story of his accession to executive Chinese chef at the Hilton Shenzhen Shekou Nanhai.
“Working hard is more important than talent in the culinary industry,” he says through the aid of a translator. “I started working in small Hong Kong restaurants when I was 14.” As he talks, he speaks in declarative, factual statements. No regrets trace their way across his face and no frills accompany his stories.
Liu grew up in Hong Kong in the 1980s, when many young Hong Kongers started working in factories or the service industry due to the citywide financial slowdown. Once Liu began working, he quit his formal education, never making it to high school.
However, he saw food as a path of potential. He hoped the culinary industry could lead to more creative work in the future as a chef. For three years he had no holidays, constantly cleaning, while beginning to learn food prep.
“I spent two years alone learning how to slice food, then I began to learn steamed dishes, then dim sum,” Lui says, continuing to describe kitchen tasks while making sweeping circular gestures with his hands, as if frying an enormous invisible wok of chao mifen.
Liu began to excel as a chef and secured a position at Hong Kong’s Hotel Nikko. While there he entered a TV cooking competition called Grand Chef Encounter – and won it. Receiving the Master Chef award on the show turned him into the face of the Nikko, with patrons constantly seeking Liu for specialty orders. “I felt a lot of pressure,” he says of the time, even though ultimately he believes that taking part in the show helped his career.
His newfound celebrity status presented opportunities away from Hong Kong, offering him the chance for the creativity he had craved as a young busboy. Liu moved kitchens to the Grand Lisboa in Macau, as well as serving as a guest chef in Malaysia and Singapore. Later, he landed in Chinese mainland at the Venice Hotel Shenzhen, before finally taking up the spatula at the Hilton Shenzhen Shekou Nanhai. He now oversees around 20 chefs at Sui Xuan, the hotel’s premiere Cantonese restaurant.
How does he relax in the high-pressure kitchen environment? “I like making fish balls,” he says, explaining that he finds the sculpting process meditative. “I appreciate how the construction of each fish is different, as well as the many varieties of fish.”
As for his advice to young chefs, he tells us: “If you just take this job to make money, you will not make great achievements… If you finish work, be willing to do extra, not because you’re concerned with getting more money but for the knowledge of the experience.” Spoken like a true grand chef.
> Sui Xuan can be found at the Hilton Shenzhen Shekou Nanhai, 1177 Wanghai Lu, Shekou, Nanshan District 南山区蛇口希尔顿南海酒店望海路1177号 (2162 3013)
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