Hong Kong gifts Pakistan a culinary star

A pair of his father's old tandoor ovens helped Hong Kong restaurateur Asim Hussain achieve a dream -- the world's first Michelin star for a Pakistani restaurant, an accolade he hopes will fire interest in the country's often overlooked cuisine.

Like many of Hong Kong's 85,000 strong South Asian population, Hussein's family trace their lineage in the bustling financial hub back generations, when the city was a British colonial outpost.

His great-grandfather arrived during World War One, overseeing mess halls for British soldiers while his Cantonese speaking father owned restaurants in the eighties and nineties.

Hussein, 33, already had some twenty eateries in his group when he decided to embark on his what he described as his most personal and risky project yet, a restaurant serving dishes from Pakistan's Punjab region, the family's ancestral homeland and where he was packed off to boarding school aged six.

His father, a serial entrepreneur and even once Pakistan's ambassador to South Korea, suggested he restore two old tandoors from his now shuttered restaurant collecting dust in storage.

"He comes from a generation that doesn't throw things away," laughs Hussain, dressed in a traditional knee-length tunic and sitting in a restaurant decked with paintings by Pakistani artists.

"Actually the results are better than if we had new ovens because these things improve with age." Those tandoors, frequent trips to Lahore to perfect recipes and a kitchen overseen by head chef Palash Mitra, earned the New Punjab Club a Michelin star just 18 months after it opened its doors.

The success made headlines in Pakistan, a country that is unlikely to see a Michelin guide any time soon and whose chefs have long felt overshadowed by the wider global recognition gained from neighbouring India's regional cuisines.

"It makes us proud, it makes us very happy," Waqar Chattha, who runs one of Islamabad's best-known restaurants, told AFP. "In the restaurant fraternity it's a great achievement. It sort of sets a benchmark for others to achieve as well."
Daisann McLane is one of those detractors. She describes the Michelin guide's arrival in Bangkok last year as "completely changing the culinary scene there -- and not in a good way."
While she's "delighted" New Punjab Club has been recognised, she has her reservations: "There is a lot of world cuisine operating way under the radar in Hong Kong and it doesn't get noticed by Michelin or the big award groups."