Kitchen duty at the Four Seasons Hong Kong

Twitter brings people together.

The 140-character-a-post micro-blog site isn’t “just another social media site.”

Apart from being a real-time platform to get news, raise awareness, voice opinions, and receive play-by-play coverage of events and shows, it can also open some very exciting doors and possibilities. 

I was in Hong Kong last December and received a tweet from the e-commerce/social media manager of a five-star international hotel chain. It was an invitation to their chocolate-themed Christmas party. I was skeptical at first. Who is this guy? How does he know me? How did he find me on Twitter? How did he know I was in Hong Kong?!

I did a background check. The hotel he works for also has a property in Manila, and I verified with the public relations manager here that he was indeed her colleague in Hong Kong. He was definitely legit.

New Twitter Friends

The Lounge is a popular place to have afternoon tea.

I ended up attending the Christmas party at the gorgeous hotel on Connaught Road in Central, and met my new Twitter friend. He introduced me to his colleagues, as well as other Hong Kong-based food bloggers. In the event of #FF or Follow Friday (a Twitter activity wherein a user can recommend new people he/she is following for the rest of his/her followers, every Friday), I somehow ended up in the #FF of a group of Hong Kong foodies, and made some new, very cool Twitter friends.

One of them was @GregoireMichaud, whose Twitter profile reads, “pastry chef, book author and active blogger.” He tweets about the desserts and bread that he bakes, often linking to his website <gregoiremichaud.com>, with beautiful, mouthwatering photos of his creations, often citing the origins of such recipes. It turns out the Swiss national, who made Hong Kong his home 12 years ago, is the pastry chef at the Four Seasons. He also has four cookbooks under his belt: Got Cheese?, Never Skip Dessert, Artisan Bread, and La Boulangerie: Baking at Home with Gregoire Michaud, available on Amazon.com and in Hong Kong newsstands.

Pastry Chef With A Heart

What held my interest, though, was his generosity in sharing his bread with the less fortunate and “caged” people in Hong Kong (old men who live in conditions worse than domestic dogs). He donates croissants, muffins, and danishes he’s made to the Giving Bread, a non-profit organization that collects fresh and leftover breads from restaurants, hotels and bakeries, and has joined them on some of their visits. He also supports Emmanuel House, a foundation in Kudat, Malaysia, that houses orphans and underprivileged children, and provides them education and work opportunities.

I wanted to learn how to bake from this chef, and made Gregoire promise to teach me something in his kitchen the next time I was in Hong Kong. “Deal!” he said.

The Chef’s Lair

Gregoire warned me that it might be a bit difficult for me to do some “work” at the Four Seasons kitchen as the hotel was quite strict with outsiders. The hotel receives numerous requests per month, ranging from training and internships to observation visits — a lot of who are willing to work there for free! Nevertheless, I think with some prodding (or begging), they relented.

Four Seasons pastry chef Gregoire Michaud, the author and their chocolate lollipops.

Last Aug. 29 was my second time to visit the Four Seasons. I love how it is so conveniently connected to IFC and the Hong Kong station (airport express). I entered the “underground” main kitchen through the side of The Lounge. I walked past the service elevators before arriving at a large room with doors correspondingly marked “in” and “out,” an orderly system to ensure nobody bumps into each other during service rush hours. 

A row of neatly set-up room service tables, all dressed in white tablecloths and a single flower vases, lines the walls of the kitchen, ready to be whisked upstairs to heed guests’ requests.

Meeting someone I had been Twitter friends with for half a year — in person — was almost like coming full circle. But because there is a very personal element to Twitter — a person muses and shares his/her thoughts and emotions more frequently and in real time — there wasn’t a disconnect. Gregoire was exactly like his cheerful, upbeat Twitter persona. It was almost like I had been friends with him for a while, although I did not expect him to be a towering 186 cm. (6’1”)! Clearly, height is not accurately represented on Twitter!

Chocolate Lollipops

He handed me my chef’s hat and apron. “You’re very lucky,” Gregoire told me. “You’re the second person in six years to be (working) in the kitchen of the Four Seasons.” Today, we were going to make Chocolate Lollipops. “It is our star chocolate treat during afternoon tea (at The Lounge),” Gregoire explained. “And it’s fun to do and eat!” I warned him that while I love to eat, my kitchen skills were zero. He assured me that he would help me along the way.

The pre-measured ingredients were laid out in front of us. Everything was much larger in quantity — and the equipment much bigger — than one would use at home. “These can make up to 300 to 400 lollies,” Gregoire shared. True enough, the mixer was so huge I used all my strength to stir the flour mixture (flour, baking powder and cocoa powder), melted chocolate, melted butter and egg yolks; and the meringue of egg white and sugar. “Can’t we just use the (automatic) mixer?” I whined, struggling to stir the mixture with the spatula. “No,” Gregoire explained patiently, “because we want to keep the whipped egg white texture fluffy. If we use the mixer, everything will turn liquid, and (it will produce) a dense cake.” 

While I was painstakingly trying to coat the chocolate cake (cut into mini trapeze shapes and stuck onto popsicle sticks) with a glaze made out of cocoa butter, milk chocolate, hazelnuts and feuilletine crumble, two pastry chefs stood across me meticulously decorating cheesecake. They were very calm and serene — not a crease on their foreheads nor a tired look in their eyes. I could see they were right in their element.

I was distracted by the smell of freshly baking hamburger buns, which are served at the hotel’s three-Michelin-star French restaurant, Caprice. Onions, shallots and Parmesan permeated the air every time a chef would open the walk-in oven. Mmmm.

I compared my lollipops to a set plated and ready to be served out on a table at The Lounge. They looked exactly the same, and they tasted fantastic — velvety moist chocolate cake coated with hardened milk chocolate and large hazelnuts that packed a crunch with every bite. It was a success! “Now you can send in your CV!” Gregoire winked.

Three-Michelin Star Kitchens

Gregoire asked me if I wanted to take a look at the kitchens of Lung King Heen and Caprice. “Of course!” I exclaimed. Four Seasons Hong Kong is the only hotel in the world to house two three-Michelin star restaurants. I had the chance to dine at Lung King Heen on a previous trip and it was one of the best Cantonese restaurants I had been to in my life. Everything was exquisitely created (like a delicate, three-layered dim sum of steamed lobster on the bottom, scallop in the middle, and shrimp on top), and the service was impeccable.

“I think chef Tak might be here,” Gregoire mentioned in passing as we walked through the restaurant on the fourth floor and into the kitchen. I was really excited. I had a big admiration for the first Chinese chef in the whole world to earn not one, not two, but three Michelin stars! He made a name for Chinese chefs, especially at a time when a Michelin ranking was often (only) associated with Western cuisine. Chef Chan Yan Tak was sitting in his room doing some paperwork, and I managed to coax him out for a bit to ask for a photo. He walked us through the kitchen (I remember there being a lot of woks), and showed us his chefs, who were all busy making moon cakes for the mid-Autumn festival.

Caprice was on the sixth floor of the hotel. I have not yet had the chance to dine here (but have already mentally calendared it for a special occasion). There is a beautiful cheese cellar at the back, with an extensive collection of wines and cheeses. (I’ve read on various websites that Caprice has one of the best cheese collections in all of Hong Kong.) I met restaurant manager Jeremy Evrard (who hails from Paris’ three-Michelin star Cinq, along with head chef Vincent Thierry), who is hailed as the hotel’s resident cheese expert. He imports over 30 different types of French cheeses — from Chenette to Epoisses to Roquefort “Le Vieux Berger.” I was intoxicated from the combination of all these pungent aromas. Any cheese lover would lock himself in this room.

Since Caprice houses an open kitchen in the restaurant, the back kitchen is very small. The entrance is through a full-length mirror that doubles as a door. I noticed a big sign that read “SMILE” on my way out. Jeremy laughed, “I put that up to motivate my staff.”

Now do you believe me when I say Twitter can bring people together and open windows and doors you never thought were possible?

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You can reach me at www.twitter.com/cheryltiu