Macau sees new restaurants in list yet loses Michelin stars

Macau’s Michelin stars dropped in the 2024 edition of the “Michelin Guide Hong Kong Macau” despite seeing new additions to the list.

The Huaiyang Garden at the Londoner Macao was awarded the two-star status recognized by the global dining accreditation body, the Michelin Guide.

Opened in early 2022 and bearing a homophonic Chinese name that resembles China’s “god of Huaiyang cuisine,” Zhou Xiaoyan, the restaurant, attained this accolade just over a year after its opening.

The restaurant managed the rare feat of securing another star this year, meaning that progress was made for two years in a row.  While this is not unheard of in Macau, it is a rare feat. When on stage receiving the accolade for the restaurant, Senior Chef Xiao Fei admitted that he was frightened when he saw the restaurant was not named in the list of 1-star restaurants, fearing that the restaurant had lost its status. Only later was it revealed that the restaurant is the only new winner of the 2-star status in Macau.

At the post-event press conference, the chef suggested that his colleagues’ and his daily scrutiny of the restaurant’s productions was what likely caused the restaurant’s upward movement. Working at the only Huaiyang restaurant among the 95 star-rated outlets in Macau and Hong Kong this year, he agreed that Macau deserves a wider variety of culinary offerings and that he is happy to see that happening.

Two local restaurants – Chef Tam’s Seasons at Wynn Palace and Sushi Kinetsu at the City of Dreams – shone by achieving their respective one-stars surprisingly within the first year of opening.

Highlighting seasonal ingredients and recipes and helmed by veteran Chef Tam Kwok Fung, the former restaurant, which is the chef’s namesake establishment, obtained its first star. Chef Tam is renowned for achieving stars for restaurants that he previously served, including Wing Lei Palace, the restaurant at the same resort that ceased operations to make ways for a Jiangnan restaurant.

Speaking to the press, Chef Tam boasted his seasonal menu that changes every two weeks. “As such, regular diners will feel refreshed almost every time they visit the restaurant,” he said. “We focus on a total experience of dining.”

Meanwhile, Head Chef Jay Myung at the sushi omakase establishment said he feels elated about the accreditation. Discussing challenges operating a fine-dining omakase sushi place in Macau, the Korean chef, who has lived in Canada and Japan, highlighted the difficulty in not being able to handpick his ingredients.
“Running a sushi restaurant in Macau is particularly difficult because I cannot visit the fish market [in Japan] every day to handpick my ingredients,” he said, although produce is flown into his restaurant on regular basis.

The palatial French fine-dining atop the Grand Lisboa hotel – Robuchon au Dôme – once again retained its 3-star accolade, marking its 16th consecutive time on the status. Executive Julien Tongourian of the restaurant, who oversees L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon in Hong Kong, has six stars under his belt this year.

When asked by the Times how he managed to maintain his restaurants’ service and culinary quality in order to retain the stars amid challenges in workforce and delivery of quality ingredients over the past few years, Chef Tongourian emphasized “training” as the critical factor.

Constant and patient training is the key to the success of his two restaurants, he suggested, hinting that it takes a lot of time to cultivate people who meet the bar.

“When I started working in Hong Kong and Macau, I have changed my mindset,” he said. “I’m now more a teacher [in the kitchen] than a chef.”

Local food critic calls for clearer culinary positioning in Macau

The wider options in Macau securing Michelin stars this year is a signal that the city should have a more diverse dining offering, Myth Chao, local veteran food critic, told the Times yesterday.

Repeatedly boasting itself as a UNESCO City of Gastronomy, Macau having too narrow choices of cuisines is not a comment unheard of. It is also part of the reason why more and more local residents have decided to go northbound for food.

In an exclusive interview with the Times, Chao, director-general at the Macau Society of Gastronomic and Culinary Arts, cited Five Foot Road, the 1-star Sichuan restaurant at MGM Cotai and The Huaiyang Garden as the signal that Macau deserves a larger number of more diverse cuisines.

Admitting that cuisines representing different parts of China are needed in Macau, he turned to discuss the positioning of dining in Macau. “I find it strange to see the growing numbers of Chinese cuisines in Macau, for which the clientele still relies greatly on mainland China” he said. “Since these cuisines are widely available in the mainland, I wonder who these local restaurants are targeting.”

Commenting on the star for Chef Tam’s Seasons, he found it an expected outcome, citing Chef Tam’s established background and the fact that Wynn Resorts have invested so much in the inauguration and promotion of the restaurant.

On the lost stars for both The Eight, Cantonese dining, and The Kitchen, steakhouse – both at Grand Lisboa Hotel – Chao found it less surprising for the former but worthy of contemplation for the latter.

“Innovative or refined Cantonese dining is so widely available in Macau now,” he pointed out. “As such, we need to look at their initial intention. If it focuses too much on instagrammable effects, two stars will be already legitimate.”

The Kitchen, meanwhile, may have lost its star under unclear circumstances. Admitting that he liked its steaks very much, “probably the quality of ingredients has deteriorated,” he suggested.

Chao especially mentioned that he is not a big fan of what he called “the chef’s three treasures” – caviar, foie gras and black truffle – especially when used in Cantonese cuisine. Many chefs, in his opinion, have resorted to these expensive ingredients to accentuate their cooking, “in order to enlarge the price tags of the dishes.”

When asked if he had experienced a deterioration in service standards in star-rated restaurants in Macau after the resumption of normalcy, Chao admitted that with a smaller population of big-spending tourists in Macau, restaurants will have greater cost considerations. With certain costs being unchangeable, such as salary, restaurants may be forced to consider less flamboyant ingredients or smaller teams as possible solutions.