Hong Kong is a city that is full of great, award-winning restaurants and chefs. While most are familiar with these restaurants as guests, few get to witness the type of food being served to staff. What’s on the menu for those that work there? For the next instalment of our Staff Meals series, we visit Chef Zinc Leung‘s Sushi Zinc, a Japanese omakase restaurant with Italian influences that proudly uses locally-caught seafood from Hong Kong.
Tucked away in an unassuming alleyway in Shau Kei Wan, Sushi Zinc takes over the former location of the prestigious Sushi Mori Tomoaki. The handover is no coincidence as Chef Zinc was a former disciple of Tomoaki after posts at Italian restaurants Gaia Restorante and the two Michelin-starred Octavium.
The intimate 10-seat restaurant is very much a blend of Chef Zinc’s story and traits. While classically trained in Japanese and Italian techniques, the team is free to experiment with ingredients and dishes without having to abide strictly by tradition.
Instead of shipping all its seafood from Japan, Sushi Zinc works closely with a local seafood expert to source quality goods from Hong Kong. As the Staff Meal was prepared, two separate shipments came in containing buckets of short-neck mantis shrimp (also known as urinating prawn in Cantonese) and a freshly caught golden-eyed snapper.
The mantis shrimp are all hand-picked to ensure the roe is full. We’re told freshness is vital and thus they would be cooked immediately that night. The snapper had already been bled upon catch and would also be prepared for use that day.
With a small tight-knit team, Staff Meals at Sushi Zinc is often very freestyle. On the menu for the day was grilled kinmedai (golden-eyed snapper) and sesame snapper along with end-cut tuna wrapped in a roll. One of the kitchen staff just came back from a visit to his hometown and brought back some Chengdu delicacies, a Sichuan mala-spice sausage made by his mom, and they would be experimenting with a new dessert item which had main menu potential — a tamagoyaki biscuit served with homemade ice cream. Finally, as it was one of the staff’s birthdays, they prepared a melon cake.
Upon our visit, the atmosphere in the restaurant was light and spirited. While the restaurant’s passion for excellence was evident, they were all for jokes and fun which carries over to an enjoyable service for guests.
“Since we only have 10 seats, a lot of the time, our customers will come back and we’ve become good friends,” says Chef Zinc. “So it’s more of a relaxed atmosphere where we can catch up and drink together.”
Check out our Staff Meals video above. Reservations to Sushi Zinc can be made here for lunch and dinner.
Sushi Zinc
Unit A1, G/F, Pak Ling Mansion,
5-7 Miu Tung Street,
Shau Kei Wan, Hong Kong
Video: Samson Jr De Guzman
Producer:
Special thanks to Joyce To, LOTUS
(The information in this article is accurate as on the date of publication.)
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