Thirty-one-year-old Luke Ng Cheuk-hang has travelled around the world in search of culinary inspiration. The Hong Kong-born chef, who is currently based in Paris, has cooked in kitchens across France, the UK, Ukraine, Japan and Hong Kong.Yet at Chez Elisa, the Parisian bistro where Ng is head chef, it is his Cantonese dishes – such as his Yangzhou fried rice – that have earned him a loyal following.“Nobody expected the fried rice to be this good,” he says, adding that people usually associate fried rice with the versions containing peas and corn from Chinese takeaway shops. “And that’s not how we do it at all.”Cooking fried rice is no hard task for Ng, who has trained in Michelin-star kitchens, including France’s Mirazur, which was ranked No 1 on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list in 2019. He also honed his skills at Septime in Paris, Florilège in Tokyo, and Kitchen Table in London.Ng’s dish “Sweet(bread) and Sour”, featuring sweet-and-sour sweetbreads, wood sorrels, roasted peppers, tomatoes, onions and fig tempura. Photo: CalambourNg, who started cooking professionally at 23, never intended to become a chef. He studied mathematics and education at The Education University of Hong Kong, graduating in 2017.