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Charmaine Mok
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Charmaine Mok

Vicky Cheng’s new Estuary restaurant in Macau is French dining but not as we know it

Vicky Cheng blends healing ingredients with French finesse and Asian touches at his new restaurant Estuary at Macau’s Capella hotel

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Vicky Cheng at his new French restaurant Estuary at the Capella hotel at Galaxy Macau. The Hong Kong-born, Canada-raised and France-trained chef first made his mark with VEA in Hong Kong’s Sheung Wan neighbourhood, following up with Wing several years later. Photo: Estuary by Vicky Cheng
Charmaine Mok
Charmaine Mok is the Deputy Culture Editor at SCMP and the desk's food and wine specialist.

“You’ll hear the word ‘nourishing’ a lot during this meal,” Vicky Cheng tells us as we sit down for a preview meal at Estuary, his new restaurant at Macau’s Capella hotel that officially opens on May 29.

It is an accurate note – the dinner is a sophisticated calibration of temperature and seasonality, where ingredients seem chosen for their healing properties as much as flavour and prestige. We leave feeling satisfied, but not bogged down.

As French meals go, this is as far as it gets from the traditional tendency to bolster courses with rich, fatty indulgence and palate-blasting moments designed to be washed down with powerful, full-bodied wines.

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Of course, there are still the hallmarks of French fine dining here: Dauricus caviar is judiciously layered in the opening coda, combining fresh tunes of spring with Japanese kabu and just-trimmed chervil that is muddled tableside into an à la minute sauce.
Estuary’s Dauricus caviar, sweet peas and turnip dish is served with a sauce of lacto-fermented kabu, brightened with lime, coconut milk and cream. Photo: Estuary by Vicky Cheng
Estuary’s Dauricus caviar, sweet peas and turnip dish is served with a sauce of lacto-fermented kabu, brightened with lime, coconut milk and cream. Photo: Estuary by Vicky Cheng
Blue lobster is a signature item, gently cooked in lobster butter and still springy. Its intense umami is excellently tempered with a crystal clear shellfish consommé that is given zing, acidity and just the tiniest hint of funk from fermented pineapple dice (peek behind the kitchen and you will see a whole cabinet of pickles, garums and other ferments made in-house). Freshness is added by way of paper-thin slices of sweet courgette.
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Estuary marks the chef’s return to his French culinary roots, the name a nod to the inevitable convergence of his life’s experiences and his decision to focus on ingredients from both fresh and saltwater.

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