About the chef

I came from a corporate IT background... having worked for companies like Microsoft in the past. On the other hand, I have always loved cooking and wanted to pursue the path of being a chef. I think I have inherited this gene from my mother & grandmother, both are wonderful cooks and induced in me a lot of great childhood food memories.

During my 20+ years of IT life, I took career break and went to study French cuisine at Le Cordon Bleu at Paris. And I would take any opportunities to do staging at restaurants or cook for familes & friends at dinner parties.

A few years ago, I took the leap of faith and decided to quit my corporate IT job to fully jump into the F&B world. I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to work at Jean May, a very authentic French bistro in Wan Chai run by a very passionate & caring chef owner. From her & the talented kitchen team, I have learned tremendously on not just cooking, but also the best practices on how to run a small restaurant.

Then early this year, I decided to take a bigger leap of faith to open my own little private cooking studio, called Gatiné (which by the way is a French cooking technique), serving people bistro-style French dishes. I believe this type of more casual yet culinarily refined French food is a perfect backdrop for group of friends & families to enjoy over a glass of wine.

My path to become a chef is by no means ordinary nor straight-forward. Yet I am grateful that this winding path has brought me skills which possibly very few chefs in this world would possess. For example, when I was struggling to keep track of all the mise en place (i.e. food inventory in preparation for dining service) in our storage, I decided to create my own mobile app to digitally solve this problem. And of course, this website and all the FB/IG social marketing setup was my DIY efforts.

I think life is short, so hopefully we can all live it to its fullness with less regrets. And I wish one day I will have the chance to cook for you and to share each other's stories, of course, over a glass of wine. 🍷😉