Chef’s homecoming

It’s often said that ‘it’s not what you know, it’s who you know’ that matters, but head chef of Zi Yat Heen, Chan Kai Hon, says he has enjoyed a career success that can be attributed to both factors. The 56-year-old’s close mentor Sammy Ho Pui Yung, executive chef of the Chinese kitchen in Four Seasons Hotel Macao, but he doesn’t subscribe to the notion of riding on coattails. “If you’re not ready for the opportunity of your life when it comes along, no one can help you,” he says. He is referring to a time just early last year, when the chance to head up Zi Yat Heen, the Four Season Hotel Macao’s fine dining Cantonese restaurant, fell in his lap.
For Chan, it not only meant moving back home to Macau after 38 years in Hong Kong, it also involved impressing a city of high rollers with refined palates. Since its nascence in August 2008, Zi Yat Heen has secured and retained two Michelin stars, an accolade no other Chinese restaurant in Macau has managed to match yet. Chan had just clocked in nine years at the Holiday Inn Golden Mile Hong Kong as executive chef in the Chinese Kitchen, and another 15 at Kowloon Pacific Club, but the high profile job posting in Macau was a different ball game altogether.
Excerpt from the May issue of epicure.