Hong Kong or Singapore? Top pastry chef of new bakery Mimmo has a big decision to make

Acclaimed pastry chef Domenico Giammarella has a big decision to make: should he live in Hong Kong or Singapore? The Montreal-born patissier, who has French and Italian heritage, has yet to reach a decision, despite having already launched Mimmo, a premium pastry brand, in Hong Kong. Meanwhile, a full-scale Mimmo cafe will be unveiled in Singapore’s Asia Square Tower 1 in early January. “At the beginning, I was leaning more towards Singapore,” he says, adding that he was drawn to the greenery in the heart of the Lion City. “But Hong Kong is such a big food city, it is growing on me.” Giammarella did not plan to bake for a living. He studied biochemical engineering at university, but suddenly decided to switch his focus to cooking. “I woke up one day and decided I didn’t really want to be in a lab coat the rest of my life,” he says. “I used to watch a lot of cooking shows, so I figured I’d try it out, and went to a couple of classes. “Luckily, my parents were really supportive. They basically told me, if you’re going to do this, do it properly.” Advanced pastry schooling followed at Le Cordon Bleu, where he learned the trade of a classic French patissier. After graduating, he honed his skills at some of the best restaurants in Montreal and Toronto, working under Québécois icon Martin Picard at Au Pied de Cochon Sugar Shack before moving to Ontario to be a pastry chef at Buca Yorkville. Most recently, he was the pastry chef at one-Michelin-star French fine-dining restaurant Alo in Toronto. But it was a stint in Los Angeles earlier in his career that sowed the seeds for his current Far East adventure, when he worked as the executive pastry chef at the now-closed Stella West Hollywood. Through the restaurant’s chef-owner, Rob Gentile, Giammarella met Korean-Canadian chef Yong Soo-doo, who had previously headed Hong Kong restaurants Silencio, U-Hang and Bip n Hops. “Yong had also worked for [Rob]. We knew of each other, but never really met,” Giammarella says. “When Rob was setting up Stella West in Los Angeles and needed help, he asked me, and I said, ‘Yeah, sure.’ Then he said he was also calling in his old chef, who had moved to Hong Kong.” For a month, the two new colleagues worked closely in Los Angeles and became fast friends. Before Yong returned to Hong Kong in 2024, he approached Giammarella with a business proposal. “He said [his former employer, Liberty Group] was looking to branch out, try new things, and asked if I wanted to open in Hong Kong,” Giammarella recalls. “Initially, I was like, let’s see if it happens. People always talk a lot in our industry. But then a couple of weeks later, I ended up booking a plane ticket, and things just happened very quickly.” A reconnaissance tour of Hong Kong and Singapore followed, which also saw Giammarella execute a six-hands dinner with Yong and private chef Nicholas Chew at Liberty Singapore and the now-closed Liberty Exchange in Central, Hong Kong. After that, he did not think twice about relocating to Asia. At Mimmo, which Giammarella opened in Hong Kong’s Quarry Bay neighbourhood, customers can see French techniques and Italian artistry applied to Asian concepts with flair and cheekiness. Initially, he had some concerns about catering to the different palates in this part of the world, but they quickly faded. Patrons have lapped up Mimmo’s pastries, including his egg tart with a French flaky puff shell, and his Italian variation of the pineapple bun. There is even a marzipan princess cake that is cheekily dubbed “Princess Disease” in a multilayered pun that plays on the similar sounds of “cake” and “illness” in Cantonese. “I was initially told that Hong Kong people don’t really like texture. And I’m like, well, that’s completely against what I do. You should have a whole mess of texture, from flaky, crispy to creamy,” Giammarella says, dismissing the misplaced advice. “Also, in North America, my pastries and desserts are considered not really sweet at all. But I realised here that I’m still too sweet for some customers, so I had to remove even more sugar from a lot of my recipes.” While there might not be any issues adapting to Asian tastes, Giammarella still cannot decide where to spend his time. “I do have to say I think the pastry game seems more advanced in Singapore. I think there’s more competition there. In Hong Kong, it’s been harder to find employees who know what they’re doing. It’s hard to find people who can taste the difference between actual French butter and margarine in a croissant.” He is adamant about baking everything fresh each morning in the back of the shop and using old-school techniques. “The younger generation rely too much on technology. They have to input a programme into the oven, and if they can’t figure out the programming, they can’t bake,” he says. But Hong Kong appeals to Giammarella in other ways. “I think one reason why I agreed to come to Hong Kong was that I know the food here is fantastic. It’s so inspiring when everybody is just making good food. Everybody eats well. It’s almost hard to get bad food here, to be honest,” he says. In an intriguing analogy, he compares Hong Kong to the character Pig-Pen in the Charlie Brown comic series. “To me, the city is like that kid who always has a cloud of dust around him. To me, that’s Hong Kong. It’s a mess, but it’s great,” he laughs. “The mess is the charm of Hong Kong. Singapore is almost too pretty, too clean and too perfect. You need some grime and dirt every now and then. I do get that they are very different cities with very different people, so we’ll see.” Mimmo, 33 Tong Chong Street, Quarry Bay

Hong Kong or Singapore? Top pastry chef of new bakery Mimmo has a big decision to make

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}At his Hong Kong patisserie Mimmo, Domenico Giammarella is blending French techniques with Italian flair. But another Asian city is calling

At his Hong Kong patisserie Mimmo, Domenico Giammarella is blending French techniques with Italian flair. But another Asian city is calling