A SINGAPORE PRESS HOLDINGS WEBSITE
FAME, they say, comes at a price. Chef Mak Kwai Pui should know - he has just been brought the bill. On it, an impending 2.5 times increase in the rental for the first and most famous outlet of his Hong Kong dim sum chain, Tim Ho Wan. Ever since the vaunted Michelin guide bestowed the hole-in-the-wall Mongkok eatery with a one-star rating in 2009 - making it the cheapest Michelin-star restaurant in the world - it seems it has not only piqued the appetite of global gourmands, but that of the property's landlord too. But instead of forking out what chef Mak deems an "unnecessary" higher cost, he's moving right on. He won't be renewing the lease on the cosy 29-seater when it expires in January. In its place will likely be a 100-seat space within Olympian City, a West Kowloon shopping mall that is offering him a longer tenancy period, he reveals to BT Weekend in a one-on-one interview at Capella Hotel's Cassia restaurant, where he is a guest chef this weekend. He is close to inking the deal, he says, and once that goes through, he hopes to launch the new outlet by year-end. "Of course I'm sad, Mongkok was my very first shop. It will be difficult to gain back the star," admits the 50-year-old. "But life has to go on. Hopefully the influence won't be that big as the shop was so small that it couldn't fit in more people even if we wanted to anyway." Besides the three-year-old Mongkok venue, known for its snaking two-hour long queues, Tim Ho Wan has three other outlets in Central, North Point and Sham Sui Po. The 150-seat latter outlet is the only other one with a star in the 2012 Michelin guide. For skeptics who believe that rapid expansion can only lead to a decline in food quality, chef Mak is quick to call out the fallacy. The key, he says, is in finding the right staff and getting them involved in the business. He takes on two chefs as joint shareholders for each outlet he opens, and dishes are made from scratch at each outlet daily, rather than deployed from a central kitchen. "Freshness is what defines Hong Kong dim sum," states the perfectionist chef known for insisting his signature barbecue pork buns be served no more than a few minutes after they're taken out of the oven. Even during this interview, he laments unapologetically the quality of the flour available in Singapore - something that Tim Ho Wan gets custom-made back home. Sourcing for suitable ingredients on his food showcases overseas - he's presented his creations in Taiwan, Korea and most recently, in Bordeaux, France - is a perennial challenge, he admits, which is why he has no plans to expand abroad, despite several enquiries from prospective partners in Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore. Says the former dim sum chef at three-starred Lung King Heen at Hong Kong's Four Seasons Hotel, who entered the trade at age 10 and likes to joke that he set up his own restaurant with the aim of retiring early: "There are already dim sum restaurants everywhere in the world, why bother starting up in another city unless you know you are much better?" he says. Fame may have made a target of this man's wallet, but it has not, evidently, gotten to his head. 
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