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Netflix documentary André & His Olive Tree is ‘so real’: behind the scenes with chef André Chiang and filmmaker Josiah Ng

  • The film, which charts Chiang’s closure of his two-Michelin-starred Restaurant André in Singapore and return to Taiwan, is ‘beautifully crafted’, the chef says
  • Ng was pleased to document the visit of one of Chiang’s early mentors, Jacques Pourcel, which for Chiang is the most emotional part of the film

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Chef André Chiang in a still from the Netflix documentary André & His Olive Tree.

When he read in October 2017 that Taiwanese chef André Chiang was going to close his eponymous restaurant in Singapore, filmmaker Josiah Ng felt compelled to contact Chiang and ask if he could document the final days of the two-Michelin-star restaurant.

Chiang, now 44, agreed, not knowing the result would be a full-length documentary called André & His Olive Tree that was first released in Taiwan on August 21, is now streaming on Netflix and will come out in cinemas in Singapore on January 14.

The 104-minute film not only focuses on Chiang – from footage of him telling his shocked staff about the closure of Restaurant André and his final few months there, to returning to Taiwan to work at his restaurant Raw – but also on his wife Pam and other members of his team.

“I was very intrigued … I wanted to uncover and ask him: why is he closing his restaurant when Restaurant André had been doing rather well at that point in time? I think that’s a central question we’re trying to ask him [throughout] the entire documentary,” explains Ng, 32, from Singapore.

Ng says there is a similarity among Asians in being obsessed with results and aiming to be perfect in everything they do – himself included.

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