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| less than a minute read

Michelin-star chef’s war on waste and sustainable eating push, and how he gets staff and Hong Kong diners to embrace change

“Hong Kong is No 3 in the world in seafood consumption, at 78kg (172 pounds) per capita. The city has always had a love for exotic seafoods like sea cucumber, fish maw and shark fin. I love seafood, but instead of using cod, at Amber we use other types of fish that are under significantly less pressure, more abundant, and are caught using sustainable methods – so we don’t use any net-caught fish, only line-caught fish, or hand-dived seafood.

With net-caught fish, tonnes of fish are mushed together and they get bruised and battered, so the quality of line-caught fish is significantly higher.

“We also use a lot of filter feeders: oysters, mussels and clams. When you farm filter feeders, there’s no negative impact on the environment, they actually reinforce the quality of the water and the biodiversity around the area where they are farmed, and they feed themselves. We work with a local lobster farm here growing spiny lobsters, and giant pomfret fish that is farmed in Lantau.”

“I was born in the 1960s but already in the early ’70s, global warming was on the agenda. I watched Jacques Cousteau films and in the ’70s, he was already saying there was a depletion in biodiversity – but what have we done since? Very little. In 50 years, I have seen a decline that is significant and that is in my lifetime. And now that I have two children and a grandchild, I feel that definitely the time has come to make a change.”

Tags

sustainability, foodwaste, hongkong

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