Te Pons are bringng edibe loe t London


master. Bill’s mother became known for her ac-


curate knife skills. She started cooking aged eight in her father’s kitchen. He re- counts how her tiny frame would stand on a stool, with a massive Chinese cleaver in her hand and chop up a whole goose beau- tifully in minutes. Her great grandfather, a Hong Kong chef, invented using cloths to soak up soup, drying the cloths and remak- ing the soup by rehydrating them to release flavours from the soup wherever he trav- elled. Knowing the importance of being able


Heriag bckons. Amy, the daughter of Michelin-starred Chinese master chef William, aka Bill Poon, comes from many generations


of chefs on both sides of her family. She launched a three-month pop-up in London in February 2018. Te launch was like a fireworks display with many write-ups. Bill Poon was described in various media outlets as “leg- endary”, a “Chinese food legend” and “renowned Chinese chef-restauran- teur” and Poon’s as “iconic”. Amy says: “My aim is to challenge and improve people’s perception and


experience of Chinese food. Tere is so much more to Chinese cuisine than sweet and sour pork and fried rice.” She plans to bring on “a Chinese culinary revolution” and is looking to open a permanent restaurant. Bill Poon is said to have put Cantonese food on the map in London. He


became a celebrity chef whose restaurants were frequented by Mick Jagger, Barbra Streisand, Frank Sinatra, Sean Connery and Roger Moore. A wise- looking man in his 70s, Bill retired in 2006 but came out of retirement, acting as a consultant to the Poon’s pop-up. Bill said that he fell ill soon after retirement, as he “desperately missed the buzz of the business”. Twelve years on, he cooked a 13-course heritage dinner at Poon’s pop-up, where he showcased classic Cantonese dishes an experience he “really en- joyed”. Bill’s father was a famous chef in China but floods seriously depressed


fish stock and the family moved to Macau. He started cooking aged 12 in his father’s restaurants in Macau and Hong Kong where he learned tech- niques in barbequing, stewing and wind-drying. He introduced his wind- dried sausages (a Chinese salami) to the UK in the 1960s and this became his signature dish. At 16, he learned to craft dim sum from a dim sum


12 FOCUS The Magazine November/December 2018


to learn from others outside his restaurant, his father advised Bill to leave and “learn from other people and do as you are told by others”. He left, aged 17, and honed his patisserie skills at a hotel in Hong Kong. In 1967, he followed Amy’s mother to England, where she was studying nursing. He soon opened his own factory, making wind-dried meat from his father’s recipe. In 1973, he opened his first restaurant in Chinatown. Bill fondly remembers cus- tomers waiting in a pub next door for a table at his restaurant. His second restau- rant followed in Covent Garden, the first Chinese restaurant outside of Chinatown. Bill was one of the first to have a kitchen


in a glass box right in the middle of the restaurant. Food critic Fay Maschler recalls: “chefs worked and wokked in a large glazed box.” Tis was long before it became trendy to have an open kitchen. His friends loved Chinese food, but they often didn’t dare to eat at Chinese restaurants. Chinese restaurant kitchens had a reputa- tion of being dirty. To demystify this mis- conception, he designed a glazed kitchen, “like a zoo”, Bill laughs. Such openness and theatre in the kitchen drew admiration (and wine) from diners, many of whom became friends. He also claims to be the first to intro-


duce the concept of set menus in Chinese restaurants, as he realised that Chinese menus were overwhelming. Another pio- neering concept was his clay-pot rice – topped with wind-dried meat in a clay pot.


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