Brian McKenna may not have an Irish accent, but he regards himself as an Irish chef - and he's taking Beijing by storm, reports Clifford Coonan
A young Irishman is taking Beijing's restaurant scene by storm, bringing exquisite but sometimes startling food and the glitter of Michelin stars to a city famed for its food but not for celebrity chefs.
There is nothing else quite like Blu Lobster in the Chinese capital. Beijing has lots of great Sichuanese, Cantonese and Xinjiang restaurants, and its own cuisine is hearty and tasty, but nobody here has ever seen a salad containing 42 ingredients, topped with a slowly cooked egg, Chardonnay jelly and hazelnut mayonnaise.
Brian McKenna, a self-effacing man with a large physical presence, opened Blu Lobster at the Shangri-La Hotel in early May, and he frequently circles its diningroom on the lookout for problems. His accent is pure London, much to his irritation and the mockery of his family, who left Belfast when he was a baby. He insists he is an Irish chef, even when local magazines describe him as British.
They are, however, giving his restaurant fantastic reviews. How about Asian spiced crab risotto with avocado ice cream, tempura of crab claw and lemon-grass bubbles? Or a piece of beef cooked at just 60 degrees, leaving it so tender you can cut it with your fork? My dessert is popping chocolate tart, which crackles in the mouth like the Moon Rock sweets we ate growing up.
The cult of the chef is still in its infancy in China. Food is a national obsession - a very common greeting is Che fan ma? or "Have you eaten?" - but the people who prepare the food are unlikely to become celebrities, no matter how good they are.
"There is no chef culture here," says McKenna, who is 29. "Everything's so young in Beijing. Chefs have to be pushed to the forefront; you need an ambassador to get a bit of celebrity culture, like in Europe, where every time you turn on the TV you see a chef . . . You have it in Shanghai and Hong Kong a bit, but you don't have it here."
McKenna began his career in London at Chez Nico at 90 Park Lane, which had three Michelin stars, and then worked at Le Poussin, in Hampshire, where, at 21, he became one of the UK's youngest head chefs in a Michelin-starred restaurant. An interest in Spanish and Italian food took McKenna all over Europe, and his belief in originality brought him to Beijing rather than to the established culinary cities of Hong Kong or Shanghai. "The Chinese have got what the Spanish and the Italians have: a passion for food. They're not brought up thinking cooking's a pansy's job. Some of the kids in the kitchen here are phenomenal. Gordon Ramsay would snap them up."
Of the 56 restaurants around the world with two or three Michelin stars, McKenna - who has two stars himself - has eaten in 49 and worked in seven. Before he came to Blu Lobster he was the star chef at Rain, in Amsterdam.
He regards himself as a team player. "Tian Liang is my sous chef, and he's gold. . . Anywhere else he'd be running the Dorchester . . . Asia needs a new breed of young chefs that can cook. The place is full of executive chefs that are just that: executives. The system is a bit old out here," he says.
"I want to make a huge impact when I'm here, not be arrogant but be outspoken. I've been employed for my contacts, and people here will learn from me; they're like sponges. Chefs need to get off their backsides and train and educate. Too few are doing anything for anyone else."
Part of the education process involves encouraging suppliers. About 95 per cent of the food at Blu Lobster is from China, whether it's foie gras or vegetables, and McKenna has built up relationships with local farmers to produce specially for the restaurant. Quality is important when you're setting out to serve the likes of lobster sauce prepared using a €26,000 lobster press, one of only a handful made by Christofle, the French silversmiths.
It's a testimony to McKenna's art that the restaurant is full every night: Blu Lobster is in western Beijing, on the opposite side of the city from where most foreigners and rich Chinese live, making it a trek through hellish traffic for many of its customers. They must appreciate the passion McKenna puts into his work. "Restaurants have been my life since I was 14. I've no education, really. It was this or the army, and that wasn't an option. But I remember the special feeling when I pulled on the whites," says McKenna, whose family were burned out of their home on Falls Road when he was six days old. (His parents have moved back to Belfast, but his two sisters still live in England.)
McKenna believes in getting involved in every aspect of Blu Lobster. "The modern chef needs to be involved in everything: the music, the water, the wine. The chef should spend a lot more time in the diningroom, getting feedback. It's also important to build a personality and a concept around the chef."
Among his current experiments is ice cream that looks like a cigar, a mojito you eat with a spoon and a BLT of tomato jelly, lettuce puree, slow-cooked bacon and mayonnaise in deep-fried breadcrumbs. "We worked on it a long time, but I couldn't get it right. Then they came up to me, out of the kitchen, and said: 'Chef, BLT is sorted.' Deconstructing food is all the rage, but there's no greater pleasure than saying: 'That's mine.' "