Guest chef Sam Leong at Restaurant Ikarus

In January 2008 at Restaurant Ikarus: Sam Leong

The King of The Kitchens

"My Humble House", Singapore

The restaurant business has no aristocratic structures that would allow for titles to be passed on through the generations. Every award, every prize honours an individual artist who has developed his or her own style with ingenious creations and tireless work. Although Sam Leong must have inherited some of his skill from his father, a chef of classic Chinese cuisine, he has gone far beyond such narrow defi nitions. Today, Sam Leong is considered a pioneer and trendsetter of New Asia Chinese Cuisine.

At the tender age of 24, this young king of the kitchens (an unoffi cial title that came with his part in a singaporean reality TV show with the same name), was responsible for serving up to 350 guests as Thailand’s youngest executive chef. However, talent alone won’t make a genius – it takes hard work and dedication to really make the most of natural abilities. It is thus not surprising that Sam Leong today runs no less than three excellent gourmet kitchens: those of the Jade Fullerton Restaurant, the Paddy Fields Thai Restaurant and of My Humble House in Singapore.

My Humble House was the brainchild of Sam Leong and artist Zhang Jin Jie, whose infl uence can be seen in the poetic names of the individual dishes: creations such as “Dancing with the Wind” or “Footprints of Solitude” captivate the guests’ imagination and work like an aperitif. “Dancing with the Wind” turns out to be a steaming coconut broth with prawns, shrimps, scallops, mushrooms and red dates as the surprise element, all served in the shell of a young coconut. The “Footprints of Solitude” are delicious lamb cutlets in a sauce made from fresh mint. And to make sure that the evening will stay in the guests’ mind, dessert is the “Sunset to Remember”, whose secret will not be revealed here. Creations of this sort caused the renowned British magazine “Restaurant” to include My Humble House in the list of the world’s best restaurants 2007, as one of only two Chinese establishments on the list.

Sam Leong’s skills are also much appreciated on the other side of the Pacifi c. In 2004, he attended the Wolfgang Lazaroff American Wine & Food Festival in Los Angeles for the seventh time. In April 2005, Leong was the first singaporean chef to be accepted into the international culinary panel of world-famous executive chefs of Singapore Airlines, which are renowned for their excellent cuisine in all classes and on all routes. The “World Gourmet Summit 2005” in Singapore elected him “Executive Chef of the Year & Chef of the Year” after he had previously been voted ”Best Asian Ethnic Chef of the Year” for three years running. There is one dish for which Sam Leong, in uncharacteristically “unhumble” style, sees himself as the unbeatable world champion – peppered crab, the dish which helped him win his future in-laws’ approval to marry their daughter. With a mischievous smile, the charismatic celebrity chef and father of two also admits to a real weakness: Bavarian-style knuckle of pork with a freshly drafted beer.