A Feast Out East

At a fabulous dinner party in one of Hong Kong’s newest luxe hotels, Canada’s Rubino Brothers prove their star supremacy.

Story by Shinan Govani
Illustration by Desamers

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In Hong Kong, a star chef from Canada is doing a belly dance – but not with his hips. “That’s the hamachi yellowtail,” Guy Rubino says softly, talking me through a three-belly dish he’s devising for a big bold dinner that night. “Flown in from Japan,” he adds. “Just came in an hour ago.”

Rubino points to a boar’s belly. There’s a modern-art-crumbs thing happening around his lips, and beads of sweat escaping from his gotta-love garden-gnome hairdo, while the room around him clinks and clunks through the unyielding white noise of a kitchen just hours away from a main event. The boar bellies – straight from Australia – are presented on dainty rocks, which, Rubino explains coquettishly, come courtesy of the superluxe spa in the hotel. “I went and stole them when I arrived,” he confesses.

“Tonight is all about indulgence,” continues the man on a culinary mission. “It’s all about champagne,” he footnotes, referring to the 1999 Moët & Chandon vintage that the top French quench reliever is celebrating ce soir via a fabulous spin-the-bottle dinner in the new Four Seasons Hotel.

Even for a metropolis that likes to show off – is it me or are there more Prada stores than drugstores in Hong Kong? – this is a far-out venture. For Guy and his brother (the more nuts-and-bolts Michael), it’s a plum chance to up their global Q rating. Known for their fine restaurants Rain and Luce back home in Toronto, plus a reality-ish TV food show called Made to Order that’s shown worldwide, the Brothers Rubino have come to this, the most manic town in the Middle Kingdom, to put their brotherly revue on the road.

A sibling bond that’s also a brand, Guy and Michael are in the odd position of being more famous here than in Canada. (Girls actually throw themselves at their feet here.) Maybe it’s because their show airs on Discovery Asia with its potential viewership of 100 million people or maybe it’s because it’s one of those inexplicable Lost in Translation-type things that form a part of global culture. Either way, it’s a hoot.

“This is delicious,” a woman with a lot of gold next to me says as she tucks into Guy’s goose later that night. The crowd is very, very chic and wouldn’t be out of place at a party for Paris Fashion Week. That man in the tomato-red pants somehow manages to work it so he doesn’t look like he’s an escapee from a caprese salad. That woman with all the sequins somehow manages not to look like Liza Minnelli. It’s flashy but just right too.

The hair, the watches and the shoes – the three things that always give it away – are top-notch. A glimpse, maybe, into how totally cool and with-it Hong Kong is despite the nagging worries these days of being left in the dust by Shanghai over in the mainland, which seems to have major buzz and non-stop construction on its side.

There’s plenty new in this town too, a writer with Hong Kong Tatler magazine tells me post-dinner in the DJ-ablaze ballroom. There’s a new chief executive and a just-finished cable car that whisks you up to the Giant Buddha on Lantau Island. There’s this Four Seasons – located right on the harbour on what is probably the best real estate around – and a new Ritz-Carlton and Mandarin Oriental. “Don’t forget about Harvey Nichols,” I remind the writer, having visited the posh retailer the day before. It’s a cowboy energy, we both decide – one that’s made this town a new frontier, oblivious to those once-worrying what-ifs that surrounded the handover to China.

Making the rounds in the room is a gorgeous woman in a wide white corset that doubles as a glass holder and comes equipped with dozens of little slots bearing flutes of Moët & Chandon. It’s ridiculously over-the-top – just like Hong Kong itself, which comes off as such an East-West mishmash that you can’t help but think that if this city were a woman, she’d be playing mah-jong in her Manolo Blahniks.

The Brothers Rubino are ready to party now that this leg of their ongoing show is over. What better place than this town, where work begets play, which begets work? And what better place than Hong Kong with its must-be-seen-to-be-believed spires – a truly Jetsons-like skyline – if you’ve got truly towering ambitions? 

Write to us: letters@enroutemag.net

Shinan Govani is the Scene columnist for the National Post and frequently appears on television commenting on celebrities and the social whirl. Write him at sgovani@enroutemag.net.

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