Translating for the palate

A piece of aged fish maw is turned slowly over charcoal until its surface takes on the dark shine of lacquer. Fermented black garlic adds depth, while sand ginger cuts through a buttery French sauce, creating a dialogue between chef Vicky Cheng's favorite dried seafood ingredient and French cooking techniques.

In another kitchen, the same ingredients might have been simmered for hours into a restorative Cantonese soup.

At Estuary by Vicky Cheng, which opened at Galaxy Macau in May, dishes are presented through the lens of contemporary French cuisine: controlled fire, carefully constructed sauces and precise tableside service.

The dish offers a concise portrait of its creator. Hong Kong chef Cheng has spent much of his career moving between culinary languages, searching for ways to make unfamiliar ingredients immediately appealing without erasing their origins.

Cheng's career reflects contemporary Chinese cuisine's growing global recognition.

Through his restaurants and his role as a judge on the cooking show Chef of China, Cheng has explored how Chinese cuisine can reach wider audiences without losing its identity.

At VEA, a one-Michelin-star restaurant in Hong Kong, Cheng established his "Chinese x French" cuisine. WING, ranked No 2 on the 2026 Asia's 50 Best Restaurants list, became his expression of "Boundaryless Chinese Cuisine". Estuary now completes the trio with what he calls "Indulgent and Nourishing French Gastronomy" — French cooking reconsidered through an Asian palate.

Estuary is not simply a return to Cheng's early French cooking. Named for where rivers meet the sea, it reflects his Hong Kong roots, Canadian upbringing and French training.

Born in Hong Kong and raised in Toronto, Cheng grew up with Chiu Chow (Chaozhou) food and his grandmother's Shanghai dishes. In Canada, however, his daily life became overwhelmingly Western.

"I grew up on a Western palate, but I am Chinese at heart," he says.

Cheng began cooking professionally as a teenager. During his six and a half years working at a Canadian restaurant, he progressed from novice to working across its kitchen stations.

"Since I was young, I was given many opportunities to compete in culinary contests," he says. He was taught "discipline of time" and "organization" — lessons he believes are unique to such high-pressure settings.

Those early experiences later gave Cheng a personal connection to Chef of China, where he joined the judging panel. Moving from competitor to judge allowed him, as he puts it, "to be on the other side of things" and "hopefully be able to help the industry as well".

The program exposed him to chefs from across the mainland and Hong Kong, each drawing on different regional styles of Chinese cooking. Their ingredients, knife skills and techniques were "not just inspiring, but also new and fresh", particularly for "somebody who's been cooking Western cuisine most of his life".

What interested him was what the high pressure revealed: "How quickly they adapt and how well they work as a team and also how well they perform as individuals".

As the field narrowed, judging became more difficult. "You're keeping only the best, and it's at a point where it starts to get very difficult to make a decision," Cheng says. "But in the end, it all comes down to taste. You can have the most creative dishes and the most amazing stories, but if there is no substance, you will not generate deliciousness."

In his early 20s, Cheng moved to New York to refine his skills at Daniel Boulud's three-Michelin-starred Restaurant Daniel. The kitchen quickly challenged his confidence.

The restaurant served about 300 guests a night while demanding precision. When he arrived at noon, it left too little time to prepare, so Cheng began coming at 11 am, then 10 am, and sometimes as early as 8 am.

"I went to New York, and I had realized that I was nothing," he says.

It is a lesson he has carried with him: no title or accolade removes the need to improve. "I know that even if I am the best today, I may not be tomorrow," he says. After about a year and a half, colleagues recognized his exceptionally orderly station and willingness to help others.

The missing piece

New York sharpened Cheng's French techniques, but also drew him toward Asia. On days off, he searched for dim sum, sushi and kimchi. "I realized that there's an Asian part of me … that I had yet to discover," he says. "So I made a decision to come back to Hong Kong."

He continued cooking French food, but as he prepared to open VEA in 2015, he realized that a conventional French restaurant no longer fully represented him. Simply adding soy sauce, wasabi or a Chinese mushroom to a Western dish was not enough, either.

Meaningful fusion requires an understanding of how both cuisines think. A chef using mushrooms from Yunnan province should first understand how local people prepare them and why that tradition exists. Only then can it be reinterpreted rather than used as decoration. "That, for me, is true fusion," Cheng says.

His Chinese education was less formal. At Hong Kong markets, Cheng bought unfamiliar produce, asked vendors how they cooked it, and tested the ideas on friends at late-night suppers.

This education shaped VEA and led to the founding of WING, which opened in 2021. The restaurant takes its name from the Chinese character yong — pronounced "wing" in Cantonese — in Cheng's name.

In Chinese calligraphy, the character is traditionally used to demonstrate eight fundamental brush techniques, reinforcing his belief that innovation must begin with a strong foundation.

Launching a Chinese restaurant without training in the traditional Chinese kitchen hierarchy was risky, but it encouraged him to develop his own culinary language.

His Western-raised palate helped him identify where international diners might struggle. Sea cucumber, for instance, can be challenging in appearance and texture. At WING, he placed it inside a crispy spring roll.

"Everybody understands spring rolls," Cheng says. "Everybody understands and loves crispy." He hopes this accessible version encourages diners to try traditional preparation.

This idea reflects his broader hopes for Chinese cuisine. "Food is a universal language," Cheng says. He believes it can evolve only when chefs understand what came before: "Without tradition, there is no innovation."

That foundation, rather than rigid regional boundaries, informs WING. Cheng hopes contemporary interpretations can lead international diners toward traditional dishes. "I hope the world will see Chinese cuisine differently because … it is for me, one of the most important, most interesting, and tasty cuisines in the world," he says.

Balancing act

At Estuary, the direction of translation changes again. The techniques, service and structure are rooted in French cuisine, but the food is reconsidered through the palate Cheng developed in Asia.

Clear broths, fermentation and extracted oils help him balance indulgence with restraint. Cheng is not re-creating the French food he learned decades ago, but reconsidering it through his years of immersion in Chinese culinary culture, one that nourishes through ingredients.

Food critic Xiong Wei, also known as Teddy Xiong, believes Cheng's greatest achievement at Estuary is his balance of abundance and boundaries. "The most outstanding characteristic of his cooking is that it is generous yet light, following a path that combines nourishment with indulgence," Xiong says. "You finish feeling satisfied, but neither greasy nor uncomfortably full."

For Xiong, the fish maw best captures Cheng's cultural fluency. "It perfectly embodies Vicky's idea of bringing together charcoal grilling, the ingenuity of fermentation and the river-and-sea character of the (Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao) Greater Bay Area," he says.

Estuary may mark a return to Cheng's French roots, but it is not the end of his journey. After more than two decades in kitchens around the world, he continues to search for new ways to let different culinary languages speak to one another. Like the meeting waters that gave the restaurant its name, those languages continue to reshape each other.

For Cheng, cooking is not a search for a final answer but an ongoing conversation between cultures.