Grief, for all the hurt and pain it might shepherd, also happens to manifest as a powerful motivator. It certainly was the case for Hilda Chan, whose path into the culinary arts was roused following the death of her beloved father.
“When my father became ill, there was so much he wasn’t able to eat,” Chan recalls sombrely. “I decided to cook for him and he encouraged me to explore new flavours and new creations. That’s where it all started for me.”
Chan’s decision to enrol in the Institut Culinaire Disciples Escoffier may have arisen from a catalytic shift in her personal life, but the culinary artist’s love of food has long been a recurring mode of reference. As Chan reminisces on a childhood spent travelling and eating, rinse and repeat, she reiterates that it’s her father – “Who also loved eating” – who always, always encouraged this esculent devotion.
In the years since her graduation, Chan buttoned up her chef-whites and got to work. From an appointment as the Asia ambassador of Disciples Escoffier from 2018 to 2020, to the honour of being guest chef at the 2019 Longines Masters of Hong Kong, to being a panel judge and host for the television programme Oppa’s Cuisine, Chan deftly manoeuvred through an industry that, to this day, remains predominantly male dominated. To add yet another feather to her toque blanche, she remains the only female chef in Hong Kong to have trained at the Élysée Palace in France (yes, she’s served President Emmanuel Macron).
The royal kitchens of Paris are a long, long way from where Chan used to spend her days. Before embarking on her gastronomic odyssey, Chan put her accounting degree to work as an event and wedding planner – another industry notorious for long hours, hard work and an insistence on precision. But that’s perhaps indicative of why Chan has, in recent years, been drawn to pastry, with its intolerance for proportions and timing that are anything less than exact.
“I want to change perceptions of how people view different cuisines through my work,” says Chan, who’s already making waves towards realising this hefty ambition with the croiffles (croissant- waffle) and cruffins (croissant-muffin) – the latter with a mapo tofu rendition, recasting the Sichuan staple into folds of laminated dough – she’s created in collaboration with executive pastry chef Yoann Mathy for Wynn Palace and Wynn Macau earlier this year.
But Chan isn’t done – not even close. These days, she’s exhaustively testing, developing and rejigging recipes in preparation for her biggest project yet. And one day, in the not-so-distant future, her delectable creations might just be available for devouring at a venue near you.