This is not really a restaurant, however. It is February 12 in Paris, and the crowd of spectators have come to watch candidates from 65 countries compete for the coveted title of Best Sommelier of the World.

The “guests” being attended to are actually judges for the influential event, held once every three years since 1969 by the Association de la Sommellerie Internationale (ASI).

The man is Hongkonger Reeze Choi Kam-fung, only the second candidate from Asia ever to make it to the finals, after Shinya Tasaki of Japan won the competition in 1995. This year, Choi finishes as a very respectable second runner-up.

The ASI Best Sommelier of the World competition is a famously challenging multi-day event consisting of several tests, including written theory, blind tasting and practical service tasks. Entering the competition was a long journey for Choi.

However, those efforts now seem to have paid off, ultimately contributing to his success this year.

“I enjoyed the service part of the challenge very much. I didn’t feel the nerves, nothing,” says Choi, 35. “It brought me back to the atmosphere of a restaurant and I truly enjoyed serving the judges the way I would have old friends.”

There is no doubt that his calm and confident manner – along with an ability to maintain a sense of humour while under pressure – charmed the judges.

“It feels like I’m in a dream. It’s unreal. I still can’t believe I could make it to the final,” Choi tells me when I catch up with him a few days after his return from the French capital.

The significance of his achievement for Hong Kong and the wider Asian wine community can hardly be overstated.

This is on top of the fact that wine professionals in other regions such as the United States, Britain and France receive a great deal more structured support to help them build their careers.

Many of the candidates Choi competed against are routinely flown around the world’s best vineyards for tastings and field trips, and receive valuable tutoring by their national ASI teams.

“I met one candidate who actually got a mental training coach, a speech therapist and a drama teacher to help him prepare for the competition,” Choi says. Needless to say, he had to make do with much less.

His success is all the more impressive when you consider how far he has come.

“I grew up in a poor family and had to quit school when I was 16,” Choi says. “So I tried to support my family any way I could. I worked in kitchens, Circle K, KFC, everything.”

One day, when he was working as a waiter at an upscale Italian restaurant in Hong Kong, his manager told him that wine proficiency could get him a higher salary – and Choi has not stopped studying since.

Choi had to quit working in restaurants so he would have enough time to study. A couple of years ago, in an attempt to create a flexible work schedule, he started Somm’s Philosophy, a beverage consultancy.

He continued to turn down work to dedicate time to achieving his championship goal and was barely able to get by. In the year leading up to the competition he undertook an even more rigorous study schedule.

“I got up at 7am, brushed my teeth, dressed and sat down to review flashcards by 7.15am. I aimed for eight to 10 hours of study every single day,” he recalls.

The bottomless well of knowledge required to reach the highest ranks in the industry, be it WSET Master of Wine, CMS Master Sommelier or ASI World Champion, has long been incompatible with the reality of performing the actual job that these titles claim to promote.

If most restaurants in Hong Kong require at least five 12-hour work days from sommeliers, how can they be expected to find time for the necessary eight to 10 hours of daily study?

Do organisations such as ASI promote the well-being of sommeliers or create a breed of professional competitors who are so overwhelmed with studies that they cannot work in service?

Is it the ability to identify a Petrus blind that defines a good sommelier? And what does it mean when a wine picked for a global blind tasting challenge retails for more than many people make in a month?

Is the stiff, Downton Abbey-style of service required at the competition relevant to the world of hospitality today? And, most importantly, what if the wine studied and praised is picked with no thought for unsustainable and environmentally harmful viticulture practices and unethical choices along the production line?

As one wine industry professional commenting on the ASI competitions puts it, “the lack of awareness of farming practices and the myriad issues connected with it strike me as a major problem. Having to imitate a penguin while competing is a small inconvenience in comparison.”

Later in February, a man in wrinkled tan chinos, a crew-neck jumper over a white linen shirt and trainers stands outside Big JJ Seafood Hotpot Restaurant, in Central, laughing and covering his face with his hands.

A dozen more people are gathered around him smiling straight into the camera with their thumbs up.

The crew assembled are some of the most talented sommeliers in Hong Kong, and at the centre of them all is Choi, who has just been surprised by a large banner placed by the restaurant booked to celebrate his return.

“Warm congratulations to the second runner-up at the Best Sommelier of the World 2023 Championship!!!” reads the banner, designed to look like a cute parody of old-school Communist posters and featuring a headshot of Choi in his competition attire surrounded by frilly golden ribbons against a bright red backdrop.

“I don’t think I’m automatically a good sommelier because I ranked third in the world this year. These things are just not related,” Choi says when asked how he felt about the result.

“You have to be a good person. You have to be humble. You have to be able to listen to your guests all the time to be a good sommelier. It’s not about the competition. It never was.”

I look at the photo of them all happy and proud and feel like a Grinch for asking the hard questions.