On the surface, it seems a most unlikely abdication and ascension.

After building Hong Kong’s highly successful Michelin-star restaurant Racines from scratch, chef Romain Dupeyre decided to uproot to Phuket, Thailand, handing over his culinary reins to an orange-haired, baby-faced Chinese chef barely in his thirties.

Leung Chun-wah, however, is no novice. He was born in Strasbourg, France, where his Hong Kong émigré parents ran a Chinese restaurant, and he learned the culinary ropes in the esteemed kitchens of Joel Robuchon in Monte Carlo and Anne-Sophie Pic’s fine dining palaces in Lausanne, Valence and Paris.

In 2023, he returned to the home city of his family to help open Cristal Room by Anne-Sophie Pic in Central’s glittering Gloucester Tower. At the same time, he reacquainted himself with a chef who had been something of a workplace big brother.

“Romain and I met around 12 years ago, at restaurant Le Figuier de Saint-Esprit, in the south of France,” Leung recalls. “He was taking his first sous chef position, and I was just coming for my apprenticeship training. We worked together for one year. I arrived in Hong Kong in January 2023. I knew he just opened this place, so I contacted him to just keep in touch.”

From Cristal Room to Racines