Vicky Lau, the chef-owner of Tate Dining Room and Asia’s Best Female Chef 2015, has opened a new project, Mora, in Hong Kong this week. 50 Best speaks to Lau about her revolutionary new restaurant, which is dedicated to soy and tofu
Celebrated for her adventurous technique and combination of Chinese and French flavours, Vicky Lau is never short of inspiration at Tate Dining Room. Inspired by the success of her recent menu series, Ode To, which explores raw ingredients in greater depth, Lau has opened Mora, a restaurant that showcases the versatility of soy.
Housed in an enclave on Hong Kong’s Upper Lascar Row, a street well-known for its antique stalls and markets, Mora is only a few minutes’ walk from Lau’s Tate Dining Room.
“I love it,” starts Lau. “The air is very good because the street has no cars, only vintage stores. There’s a little one right outside our front door, whose owners are fourth generation and sell all kinds of knickknacks.”
The restaurant itself is intimate, with a 28-seater dining room replete with comfortable dark wood furnishings and plush, emerald sofas. “It’s small,” says Lau, “but it’s quite enough for the concept that we want. Compared to Tate, Mora is more casual. I don’t have to care as much about the plating or the garnishes.”
Vicky Lau's new restaurant, Mora, is located on Upper Lascar Row, in Sheung Wan, Hong Kong
Due to Hong Kong’s current Covid restrictions on restaurant hours, Mora’s opening week has focussed on lunch service and the new menu, entitled Characters of Soy.
It’s an ingredient that resonates with Lau on many levels: “Mapo tofu is one of my all-time favourite Chinese dishes,” she explains. “We went to tofu restaurants in Kyoto and ate tofu dishes at home growing up, but I didn’t pay much attention to it. When we did an ‘Ode To’ menu at Tate that was dedicated to tofu during the pandemic, I really fell in love with it.”
While the plant-based protein is still growing in popularity in the West, soybean and tofu have a long-standing history in Chinese cuisine. “Long before OmniPork or Impossible Meat, Chinese vegetarian restaurants and temples incorporated tofu in many forms,” Lau explains.
At Mora, tofu is not intended as a meat substitute and lobster and chicken feature across the menu. “I’m not trying to preach about reducing meat consumption, but I think it’s a good start to help people realise that you don’t need lots of meat to enjoy a meal,” she says.
Organised according to its ‘characters’, the dishes present tofu in many forms. “We start off with something very silky, then something crunchy, then meaty, a little bouncy, then soupy,” Lau continues. “I’ve never come across an ingredient that is so versatile in terms of texture – you can’t really do that with meat.”
Cold chicken soy milk bouillon noodle with bean paste, from Mora's menu, Characters of Soy
A standout dish on the menu – and one of Lau’s favourites – is the cold chicken soy milk and bouillon noodle with bean paste. “The soup is based with soy and chicken broth, and we use udon to go with it. It’s very smooth in the mouth, slippery from the noodles and has so much flavour,” she says.
Due to the large quantities of soy used by the restaurant, Lau has taken ownership of its tofu production and installed a new method for extracting soymilk in Mora’s own kitchen. “We went crazy and got a really big machine,” she says.
The 2m-wide contraption can output a staggering 50 litres of top-quality soymilk in 30 minutes. “How you pasteurise and bottle soy matters a lot because it can ferment very easily. With the new machine, we can immediately pressurise the soymilk, bring it up to 130C in temperature and bottle it to last for seven to 10 days,” explains Lau.
Her investment in this advanced technology will open new avenues for the restaurant. “The menu is only a small part of the project,” Lau says. “We’re going to be selling the soymilk bottles with different textures and coming up with a lot of recipes that people can do at home.”
Lau takes a more casual approach to the presentation and plating at Mora
Mora’s soymilk offers more than simply excellent flavour. “It has so much nutrition and is suitable for everyone,” says Lau. “You can use it to create different textures of tofu – from bean curd, to yuba [tofu skin] to silken tofu.”
“We also have a cake shop, where right now, we’re testing the switch to soy cream,” she explains. At Tate, Lau serves a brioche with tofu butter, while in Mora’s kitchen, the butter is exchanged for a thick soy cream that is whipped with fermented tofu.
Working day-to-day in both restaurants, Lau has enjoyed being able to experiment with the different concepts. “We’ve been running Tate for 10 years and I’ve been so used to the fine-dining menu. At Mora, we use many local ingredients and I have a lot of ideas and input, which is fun.”
Vicky Lau won the Asia's Best Female Chef award in 2015
Since she won the Asia’s Best Female Chef award in 2015, Lau has taken on a directing role in the kitchen. At Mora, Percy Ho is at the helm as Head Chef. During his three years at Tate Dining Room, he quickly climbed the ranks to Sous Chef and is now responsible for the daily operation in Mora's kitchen.
Looking back on the years since she won the award, Lau reflects positively on the changing attitude towards female chefs. “I think it’s evolved a lot, mainly in what I see as the chefs’ value mindset. With awards and TV shows, chefs are getting more attention and encouraging people to the industry – I’d say a lot more women are not afraid to jump in. I also see a lot of restaurants, many with male head chefs, giving opportunities to female chefs in leading positions,” says Lau.
Her own team is also looking forward. “We’re mainly focussed on the soymilk production and making more of our own tofu but there’s a lot of a potential. Dishes will evolve over time and there are many more things that we’ll try in future.”
‘50/50 is the new 50’ is a content series created by 50 Best and supported by S.Pellegrino with the shared aim of promoting equality, inclusivity and balance in the hospitality sector and beyond.
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