Fine dining, jazz and Lego art: Sandy Keung’s unconventional approach to cuisine

Chef Sandy Keung isn’t one for estimations. When I ask her to visualise her future in five to 10 years, she swiftly interjects. “Six years,” she says. “That’s when the lease is up.” The lease in question is for a swanky space on the 23rd floor of the gallery-filled H Queen’s building in the heart of Central, where she has just relocated her 11-year-old restaurant, Table, from its previous home in Sheung Wan. Just like her dishes, Keung is hard to define. Coming into food from finance means her approach is often unconventional, and her love of music resulted in her hosting theme nights where each dish is accompanied by a piece of music. Though Keung is known for her seafood dishes, along with her depuration technique (where seafood is placed in clean water to allow purging of impurities), she also serves lesser-known fare such as lamb heart and brain. “People call us and ask, ‘What kind of food do you serve?’” she says, laughing. “Some say it feels very French because of my sauces. I’ve also got ‘modern Chinese’ before, which really surprised me. I’m not sure.” Table 2.0 comes with some new features, including a wine lounge, balcony spaces with cityscape views and two wine cellars – one for regular service and one for reserve, one-off bottles. Despite Table now being a popular spot for business lunches and meetings, it was still important to Keung to retain its homey charm. Key to this is the Lego art Keung creates in her spare time, found around the restaurant. A hot-pink heart hangs on the wall, and Lego wine bottles rest on tables. She pulls out a drawer filled with multicoloured Lego catch-alls that function as wine-cork trays. “Kids love playing with them, too,” she says. Fresh flowers are arranged by Keung’s hand, chic affairs featuring calla lilies and cypress pine. The restaurant’s decor is still a work in progress, she says, pointing out empty spaces on the walls yet to be filled with a painting or Lego art. “It’s a little harder to create the cosy vibe with four-metre-high windows,” she says. “A lot of my regulars who have been here now say it’s a lot nicer, but they still feel it is genuinely very ‘Sandy’.” Fresh from hosting a jazz performance with Ted Lo and Alan Kwan at Table, Keung is still buzzing off of her themed menus for last month’s art fairs, created in collaboration with neighbouring galleries. Though Art Basel and Art Central are finished, the menus and exhibitions will be running until the end of this month. We caught up with Keung to chat about her novel approach to wine pairings, her pre-chef life and what it takes to run your own business. What was your first experience with cooking? At university (in New York), I was very, very poor. I cooked out of necessity. My dad didn’t pay for my tuition, so I had to work and hardly had any extra money. There were many meals I had that were just white rice, ketchup and stir-fried corn – and that was OK. I only started taking an interest in food after I started working in Hong Kong. When you live in New York for too long and you move back here, you’re always two sizes too big compared with Hong Kong girls. There were many mornings in the office washroom where the secretary would be like, “Don’t wear sleeveless tops, Sandy. You’ve got fat arms.” So, I cooked to lose weight and for nutrition. After some time, I thought, can I make it tastier? I really only fell in love with cooking when I moved to Vietnam years later and worked part time in a French restaurant. Why did you become a chef? I wasn’t looking for anything in particular when I started the journey. A lot of it was probably vanity. It’s a bit like showmanship, right? I want people to love my food and love me in the process. It’s validation-seeking and all of that. As it went on, I realised that I love the process of it. I could never have lived through people’s milestones the way I do now as a chef. You become such a part of their celebration. That’s what cooking ultimately means for me, that my skill set allows me to facilitate human connections. Walk us through your new menu concept We take on the principles of traditional Chinese medicine. You’re supposed to eat local produce because that puts your body in harmony with your environment. That means what’s the most bountiful now, what’s growing best this season. These foods have the highest energy. How do you approach wine pairings? (American wine critic) James Suckling once said to me, “Sandy, wine pairing is slightly bulls***. Drink what you love, eat what you love. That’s the best wine pairing.” And that’s my approach. I have three sommeliers, but I’ve told them that there is no such thing as only one correct wine for each dish. When we do wine pairings, we do flights of three or five wines, and we let you choose over the course of the dinner. It’s all very casual. I don’t want there to be pressure. What was behind the desire to move? I would say a good part of it was for my team, especially the kitchen team. They’ve been with me from the start, which is 11 years of their life and career. They could have gone and worked for a big hotel group for the benefits and the retirement plans. They would have all of that safety, but working for a small, independent restaurant, you have none of that. The other part is, you need to grow. You need to change as a person, as a business. We cannot stay where we are because if we do, then we’ll probably slowly die or end up going backwards, right? How are you dealing with the downturn in Hong Kong’s food and drink industry? I believe that even in the worst of times, there’s always a way to do certain things and to … I wouldn’t say “prosper”, but a way to survive. I don’t have a magic formula, but I believe a restaurant is a business of happiness. There are still lots of people in Hong Kong. People are still going out. You just need to give them a reason. What lessons can you share from 11 years of running your own restaurant? Don’t give up. If someone asks, “How many times do you have to fail before you quit?” I would say, I just won’t. There’s always a way to do better. You may not get the results you wanted, but maybe you’ve set the goal wrong. While this sounds like it’s a complete passion project, it is a real business. I have people’s careers to be worried about. But you have to enjoy the process.

Fine dining, jazz and Lego art: Sandy Keung’s unconventional approach to cuisine

Hong Kong financier-turned-chef behind Table, which has just relocated, on why she can’t and won’t leave the restaurant business