Led by the Balinese native, with a boisterous international cooking background, private kitchen Le Chefeteria explores a dozen cuisines and its flavours.
The private kitchen business in Hong Kong has found its popularity via ‘if-you-know-you-know’ channels amongst foodies in recent times. Such foodies visit private kitchens for a dining experience that subvert Hong Kong’s well-established culinary directions and rules.
Private kitchens do not typically deliver press releases to the public, they rely on word-of-mouth advertising and proliferation amongst dining circles. Le Chefeteria, a humble three-year-old private kitchen in Causeway Bay, has proven that the rules dictating success in the restaurant scene are not as fixed as previously assumed.
Their tagline – nouvelle French cuisine with South East Asian crossovers – does not do justice to the intricacies of the culinary programme delivered here, often with flexibility neighbouring restaurants wish they could embrace.
“We offer fusion without confusion,” Ada shares with Foodie during a phone interview. Le Chefeteria was opened in December 2021. Lunch and dinner menus in the dining space feature classic French brasserie dishes sans heavy milk and butter with more colour than the traditional versions. Touches of Southeast Asian cuisine can be seen throughout.
After a closure owing to the pandemic in early 2022, the private kitchen re-opened in late April 2022 in a big way. “We had to reopen with a strong chef, to create a menu like no other in town. I wanted a chef with the most unique view who could bring colour with flavours and herbs and spices.” Along came chef Azmi Arialda and his biography flush with a dozen countries and cultures where he has trained, cooked, and lived in.
“The basics of the kitchen skills are from my father’s restaurant in Bali, where we specialised in Balinese barbeque, and [my training at French culinary school in Champagne],” Azmi shares.
The Balinese chef worked on an international cruise ship travelling the globe, assisted Michelin-starred chef Olivier Bellin at Joel Robuchon in Hamburg and The Ocean in Hong Kong, and travelled Southeast Asia to study his craft.
“I learned Thai cuisine at Marina Phuket [in Thailand] and Samsen [in Hong Kong], Korean cuisine in Gyeongju and Daereungwon, Singaporean cuisine at the Singapore expo and Orchard restaurant, and Malaysian cuisine in Kuala Lumpur and Johor Bahru.”
The roaming chef has also claimed stake in Argentina, Japan, and South Korea to study Black Angus, wagyu, and Hanwoo beef.
Owing to chef Azmi’s French training, and a wealth of restaurants dotting Europe where he interned, the menus at Le Chefeteria follow a central French theme. “That was a requirement,” Ada says. “His family restaurant is in Bali and he has a lot of interests in different Southeast Asian cuisines and aromatics.”
A business lunch (starting at HKD238) or three-hour-long dinner (starting at HKD568) at Le Chefeteria comprises an Olympic-like representation of dishes chef Azmi has trained and enjoyed over his global work: French lobster bisque, Argentinian Black Angus beef tenderloin, Korean bulgogi, Thai braised pork hock, Indonesian beef rendang, American Maine lobster, Japanese ran-oh egg pasta, Sri Lankwan soft shell crab curry, and Cantonese hairy crab roe pasta.
Menus, Azmi says, are crafted “from my inspiration and the real culture of the origin country cuisine.” Above all, the food programme at Le Chefeteria must combine the “real taste of authenticity and basic French skills.”
Every single dish, bar the tiramisu dessert, uses lemon, be that rind, juice, peel, or zest. “The two things you cannot escape [at Le Chefeteria] are lemongrass and coconut. Anybody that comes here with a coconut allergy is not going to survive,” she jokes. Azmi’s love for lemon is so pervasive within his cooking that he and Ada created the Hong Kong Lemon Story menu to showcase the power of the citric fruit in elevating all types of flavours.
“You can see the ingredients shine through every dish. You can taste the coconut and the smoke of the cooking. You can enjoy the vegetables, poached in lemongrass and lemon leaf,” Ada says. Milk and butter is substituted in the menus for coconut milk and avocado, a departure of the heavy quality of French cooking in favour for flavours closer to home.
Cuisines like Thai, Vietnamese, and Indonesian are a favourite of Azmi and Ada. “We want to preserve the integrity of ingredients and that’s what Thai cuisine does, even though it may be spicy. You can taste the vibrancy in terms of flavours.”
Ada explains that Le Chefeteria has an edge on restaurants in terms of their intimacy factor. “There is a conviviality to dining in a private kitchen. It is much more cosy and you know who you are talking to.”
“I choose to work at Le Chefeteria because I can create a type of French cuisine with Southeast Asian flavours.”
Book a seat at Le Chefeteria today to explore chef Azmi’s fusion without confusion of French meets Southeast Asia and everywhere in between.
