In Hong Kong, One Chef’s Private Dinners

Sandy Oetterli
 
Andrea Oschetti, who offers private group meals at his home in Hong Kong.

Many of the most interesting meals in Hong Kong are being served behind closed doors. “Private kitchens” are all the rage – and help chefs skirt the city’s strict licensing on restaurants.

Milan-born Andrea Oschetti is refining the concept by opening his own home to up to 10 diners at a time (clients can also hire him to cook dinner in their homes). He holds periodic themed dinners — or will turn a private dinner into an Italian-cooking course, or a gastronomic tour of Hong Kong.

Mr. Oschetti, who also works as a photographer, brings a personal touch, colored by extensive travels, to his meals. His home is decorated with shots from his trips around Asia; masks he has picked up in Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, China and Thailand serve as additional decoration. (He’s happy to share the story behind each one.) He also holds a collection of old travel books that visitors are free to browse. But the main focus is on the food.

“Here in Hong Kong, if you spend 40,000 dollars a month, it’s not really a private kitchen, it’s a restaurant,” he said. “My concept is more you are having a private chef, for you.”

There are three kinds of “event dinners,” which cost 888 Hong Kong dollars (about $116) per person. With “Private Kitchen Color,” guests are asked to wear a particular color, and all the food is designed to match — one night might be black, another white (the chef is puzzling over what to include on the menu for orange and purple evenings).

A recent “black night” almost escaped the cliché of squid ink – Mr. Oschetti threw it in a sorbetto with sesame – and instead involved a pleasantly grainy cream of black bean soup with prawns and rosemary, followed by a black risotto with porcini mushrooms, and then a sea bass filet encrusted with black olives. The evening ended with black sesame panna cotta and blackberry coulis. Each dish is paired with Italian wine.

There are also evenings for “Dining in the Dark,” and a “Love Dinner,” which is kind of like speed dating but based around food — you have a different dining partner for each dish.

And non-themed dinners are also available. He prepares each meal from scratch, and charges 650 Hong Kong dollars per head. He’s cooked for as few as two people but normally requires around six.

Mr. Oschetti, 37, has been cooking since he was 5, learning to make pomodoro sauce in the kitchen of his grandmother. He worked at local restaurants through high school and university, where he admits he honed his skills “to impress girls.” In Hong Kong, he has worked with Gianni Capriolli, the chef at the Italian restaurant Isola, whom he considers a mentor. He says he’s the only Italian private chef in town.

“In Hong Kong, people eat out a lot. I ask, ‘What did you eat yesterday in that restaurant where you spent 700 dollars?’ And they don’t remember,” he said. “That is terrible to me.”

Reservations can be made at his Web site.