Chef Gaggan Anand to Wow Diners at Landmark Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong

The Landmark Mandarin Oriental, Hong Kong’s third pop-up restaurant event of 2014 will be helmed by Chef Gaggan Anand from Gaggan Restaurant in Bangkok, recently recognized as the #3 chef in Asia on S. Pellegrino’s Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants and earning the enviable #17 spot on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list in 2014.

Cooking in Hong Kong for the first time, the Kolkata born chef will guide diners through three nights of gastronomic journeys to ‘his’ edible India, from 22 to 24 September, in the Tian and Di function rooms at The Landmark Mandarin Oriental.

These evenings of ‘Gaggan Style’ will tantalize taste buds with progressive and aesthetically appealing nine-course dinners with wine-pairing priced at HK$2,288 per person.

Best known for his adventurous sci-fi dishes, the talented 36-year-old Punjabi has garnered exceptional reviews including the title “Captain Kirk of Cuisine” by Time magazine in 2011. At the Landmark Mandarin Oriental, Gaggan plans to blow diners’ minds while pleasing their palates with his modernist molecular twists on classic Indian cuisine. This true kitchen wizard transforms his dishes into edible art works enhanced by captivating pyrotechnics.

Ever the good Indian son, Gaggan says his mother nurtured his deep passion for cooking from an early age and he’s quick to credit her recipes as the classical inspirations behind his avant-garde interpretations.

Gaggan started his culinary career with the Taj Group and at the tender age of 22 cooked for then U.S. President Bill Clinton and the President of India. In 2007, Gaggan set off to Thailand in search of fresh challenges and quickly established a renegade reputation with dishes that were often compared favorably by the international media to those of the Michelin-starred restaurants around the world.

In preparation for opening his eponymous Bangkok eatery, Gaggan interned with the molecular research team at Spain’s legendary El Bulli, where he honed his culinary skills under the tutelage of Ferran Adrià and says he learnt how to physically and chemically transform ingredients at the cutting edge of culinary science.

Back in Bangkok, the Gaggan Restaurant opened in 2010, and Gaggan’s culinary genius quickly drew rave reviews, earning the ultra contemporary restaurant housed in a colonial bungalow, its spot on the Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants list in only three years.

During this three-night only-in-September event, Hong Kong food connoisseurs will have the rare opportunity to experience Gaggan’s theatrical signature dishes during the four canapés, nine-course dinner. These may include such wonders as Willy Wonka and Foie Gras Factory (foie gras mousse with spiced red onion and raspberry-hazelnut praline glace), Down to Earth (summer vegetables, asparagus, morels, mushrooms, artichokes with 62ºC egg yolk and truffle chili air), and Best Memory (free-range lamb chop sous-vide, grilled and finished with green herb oil), each one referencing India’s most familiar street flavours but with many an inventive twist.

“I speak for everyone at The Landmark Mandarin Oriental when I say how excited we are to welcome Gaggan Anand here for our third pop-up restaurant of 2014. He follows visits of other ‘World’s Best Restaurants’ chefs but with an admirable style entirely his own. We are thrilled to bring this exclusive and dramatic dining experience to our international guests and local friends,” said Greg Liddell, General Manager of The Landmark Mandarin Oriental.

Priced at HK$ 2,288 per person, the event will be held from 22 to 24 September 2014 at the Tian and Di function rooms. Advance reservations are strongly advised.