The 2025 Inedit Damm Chefs' Choice Award winner on inspiration, experimentation and being recognised by his fellow chefs.
What's the unsung hero of Chinese cuisine? Dried seafood – or at least that's the story Vicky Cheng has set out to tell at his game-changing restaurants, Vea and Wing, which came in at No.53 and No.3 respectively at Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants this year. Raised between Hong Kong and Toronto, Cheng appreciates deeply the nuances between eastern and western palates, allowing him to innovate with time-worn Chinese ingredients in ways that continue to surprise and delight daily.
Off the back of winning the 2025 Inedit Damm’s Chefs' Choice Award, he discusses his early days as a chef, evangelising the use of Chinese ingredients (dried seafood, don’t forget) and what it means to be recognised by his peers.
What was the response to Vea when you first opened almost 10 years ago?
"People were hesitant. At that time, fusion was a word that people didn’t like or accept, so we took a real chance. In my mind, it made perfect sense because I was trained in classic French cooking but I was born in Hong Kong. The city already had lots of high calibre French restaurants, so I thought it made sense to create a ‘Chinese x French’ concept, where the restaurant is essentially French, but has a lot of Chinese influences, using locally grown ingredients and incorporating elements like dried seafood – fish maw [the swim bladder of a fish which helps it regulate buoyancy], sea cucumber and dried abalone – that are so closely associated with Chinese cuisine."
Fragrant chilli Alaskan king crab with crispy cheung fun
What led you to open Wing?
"For years, when the day was over, I would cook Chinese food for friends. That was my time to cook, play and catch up with friends, but it also became my research and development time. After a while, I realised I had accumulated a lot of Chinese cooking technique, which I had never studied before. Then one day, a friend said, 'Have you ever thought about opening a Chinese restaurant? Because actually your Chinese food is really good.' It kind of just evolved from there."
What are your signature dishes?
"Honestly, at both Vea and Wing, we’re always drawn back to dried seafood – I think it speaks so much to Chinese cuisine. For example, to me, a sea cucumber is a very attractive protein, with lots of health benefits, but many foreigners don’t know anything about it and they find the texture off putting. So how do we make it appeal to a wider audience?
"Everybody loves chips, everybody loves spring rolls, everybody loves crispy. So at Vea, we have a crispy sea cucumber, which we fill with a shrimp mousse and a prawn sauce. By changing the texture and creating a flavour-rich sauce, suddenly guests almost forget that they’re eating sea cucumber, and discover a new ingredient."
What is your favourite ingredient to work with?
"Dried seafood, but specifically fish maw. It’s very nutritious but still a mystery to many people. I study it all the time: I buy it, eat it, collect and cook it, and I still feel like I’m only just scratching the surface of what it has to offer. It doesn’t have a strong flavour, but with the right skills and cooking techniques you can inject flavour into it. Texture-wise, it’s like a big piece of collagen, almost like beef tendon."
Sea cucumber spring roll with spring onion
Do you feel any sort of obligation to educate people about Chinese ingredients?
"Educate is a big word, but it almost feels like an obligation to spread this information, to tell the world about these ingredients that we’ve been using for hundreds of years. I think I can be the person who helps change people’s minds about an ingredient with an unfamiliar texture, for example, because I grew up with a Western palate, so I get why they don’t like it. Also, since I never had a Chinese chef teach me how to cook, I’m not caught up in sticking to tradition. I’m free to break the rules without offending anyone. Instead, I’m led by my palate, which, after 25 years of cooking, I know I can trust."
Who do you see as a mentor?
"I haven't had many mentors. Outside of the kitchen, I think my mom is definitely one of the biggest reasons for my success, along with my wife. In terms of chefs, Jason Bangerter who's now at Langdon Hall in Ontario, was my first mentor. When I started working with him, I didn’t even own my own proper knife. Over the next six years, I went from dishwashing to pastry and everything in between. He instilled a sense of discipline in me, which I think you do need in order to be successful as a chef, and he was also big on no waste.
"Besides being important for sustainability, cooking that way breeds creativity. You start to think, 'How can I use that corn husk? What can I do with those potato skins?' Later on, I gained more polish while at Daniel in New York."
Vicky Cheng is the winner of the Inedit Damm Chefs' Choice Award, as part of Asia's 50 Best Restaurants 2025
When did you realise you wanted to become a chef?
"When I was around 12, I would watch Jamie Oliver and Emeril Lagasse on TV while everyone else was watching cartoons. Emeril Lagasse was so entertaining, super funny and made cooking look fun and Jamie Oliver always made you think, 'Actually, I can cook that.' So that’s where my interest sparked, when I was living in San Francisco, and then eventually I moved to Canada and started cooking professionally at 15."
Finally, what does it mean to win the Inedit Damm Chefs’ Choice Award, as part of Asia's 50 Best Restaurants 2025?
"It means a lot. I was extremely surprised and obviously very happy to know that among the community of chefs that I know, whom I call friends, I’m well liked. A lot of the time, you get praise and compliments from guests, but it’s not often you get them from chefs, because they have so little time to go out to dine. I’m very proud to have received this award."
Watch an interview with Vicky Cheng, chef-owner of Wing and Vea:
