IFT Executive Assistant Manager for Food and Beverage Mr. David Wong has 2 passions in life: eating and drinking. Luckily for him, they go together, and they keep him busy at work and in his spare time. “A whole day related to food and wine is good fun. It’s not really a job,” he says.
Mr. Wong oversees the IFT Educational Restaurant on the Mong-Há Campus and IFT Café on the Nam Van Lake waterfront, and teaches courses to do with food and wine at the Institute. Mr. Wong also puts his knowledge of food and wine to work when outside IFT. He is regularly invited to judge food or wine competitions, and he writes restaurant reviews and other sorts of articles about food and wine for several publications.
The Macau Culinary Association, of which Mr. Wong is a founding member, regularly puts on cooking competitions and training sessions given by chefs brought in from abroad. The association also does charity work, cooking special meals for orphanages in Macao on festive occasions.
“What do I talk about other than wine and food?” Mr. Wong replies when asked. “Football,” he says. He is a fan of English Premier League side Tottenham Hotspur.
Life in the kitchen
Mr. Wong was born in Hong Kong. His family moved to Britain when he was 4 years old. It was there that he trained to be a chef. He holds a master degree in hospitality management from the University of Birmingham.
“I studied and worked as a chef in the United Kingdom for more than 20 years, including some time in France,” he says. “After leaving the UK, my goal was to go to Hong Kong and just work there for a year or so, and go back to the UK. But it didn’t happen.”
Instead, Mr. Wong came to Macao, to work at the old Mandarin Oriental hotel, now called the Grand Lapa hotel. Then he went to work in Thailand and Singapore. In 2004, he returned to Macao and joined IFT. When he began working in education, Mr. Wong missed “some of the buzz you get” from being a chef, he says. But now, he adds, he does not miss it so much.
From the IFT Mong-Há Campus, Mr. Wong has witnessed what he calls the “amazing” developments in Macao’s hospitality business since the liberalisation of the gaming industry in 2002. Macao now has many good restaurants and puts on a lot of events to do with food, he says. But it still lacks the variety Hong Kong offers, he notes.
Mr. Wong enjoys keeping himself up to date with Macao’s food and drink scene by visiting new restaurants. He says it is a mistake to think good food and drink are to be had only in the city’s posh places to dine. Good eating and drinking “doesn’t have to be too expensive”, he says. “It just has to be good.”
Mr. Wong is quite capable of switching off his expert’s analytical mind and just relaxing and enjoying a meal. “Give me a glass of wine and I’m relaxed,” he says. He particularly enjoys Portuguese wine and Pinot Noir, especially from Burgundy.
His cooking talent is occasionally put back into service by cooking at home. “But I don’t like the washing up,” he says. He has 2 children, both studying abroad.
When Mr. Wong travels – which he enjoys – a travelling companion is his passion for food and wine. “I like to go out to visit wineries, to see the nature, the grapes, to enjoy good wine and good food,” he says. South Africa and New Zealand have left a deep impression.
“The wine and food, the food and wine: always together,” he says.
