“My grandfathers on both sides of the family were very exploratory about the food,” says chef Christopher Ho, tracing the origins of his culinary journey, which began in the UK during his university days, when necessity transformed into passion. “I learnt how to cook everything [from] YouTube; I was at college and there was no Chinese food on the internet at the time, so all my food was more western style.” It wasn’t until his return to Hong Kong in 2016 that his culinary path truly took shape. Here, Ho immersed himself in professional kitchens, learning the rhythms and rituals that would take him from serving intimate groups to running pop-ups for more than 100 diners at a time.
With the advent of Covid and the world retreating indoors, Ho found his skills in higher demand than ever. “People cared a lot about what they were eating; they were being a lot more conscious about their health and also cooking a lot more at home,” he says.
When Ho returned to Hong Kong, he started nurturing his love for food by working with boss- turned-mentor, chef Eric Räty of Arbor. Räty shared a post about a meal Ho had made for him, after which Ho found himself debuting at Test Kitchen in Sai Ying Pun, beginning of a series of pop-ups at long-established restaurants like the now-closed Sevva and hipper joints like Interval pizza in Cyberport, each with its own flavour, mirroring his dynamic approach to cuisine. Following his many successful pop-ups, watch brands like Breguet and Audemars Piguet decided to collaborate with Ho to create one-of- a-kind experiences.
However, parallel to his rise in the culinary world is his romance with watches—another legacy inherited from his grandfathers. We sat down with him to explore his two passions.
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Rolex Day-Date Khanjar emblem (Photo: courtesy of Tatler Hong Kong/Zed Leets)
How do you think your profession as a chef and your passion for watches complement each other? It’s about meticulousness. With watches, it’s about being precise … It’s about the fine details. The more details you look into, the more you find out about the watch—and it’s the same thing for cooking. The amount of detail you put into a dish and the amount of effort you put into each step can vastly change the outcome of the dish. It’s about following a recipe, and about you interpreting the same recipe and creating something that’s a bit different. With watches as well, the end goal is just to tell time, but what happens in between, the steps that [a watchmaker] takes, the attention to detail and how you want to interpret each detail make all the difference.
How did your watch collecting journey begin?My watch journey was very similar to my food journeys in that both my grandfathers collected watches. I received my grandfather’s watch, a Breguet, just before he passed away, so that is one of my most memorable pieces. It’s very much similar to my love for food—the passion really stems from the family. It’s quite incredible how such small mechanics can create a watch that tells time, and time is such an abstract concept that we take it for granted. But exactly what even is time? It’s a concept purely governed by tiny springs and screws, and everyone in this world is following this.
The fact that humans have been able to invent something that has the capability to tell time is still quite incredible to me. So that’s where my passion comes from.
Rolex Submariner 1994 (Photo: courtesy of Tatler Hong Kong/Zed Leets)
Tell us about collaboration with Breguet.It was for their launch of their Marine watch about two years ago. The watch that my grandfather left for me was the original Breguet Marine, so it meant quite a lot for me that they invited me to do the event for the new launch of the Marine. They wanted a nautical theme for their event; they ended up taking their clients out on a boat, and asked me to cook on a boat, with very limited equipment. I’ve looked up to this brand since I [was young], so being able to work with them because of the passion for my food was a bonus.
Can you tell us the stories behind three watches in your collection that mark milestones in your career or life?One of my favourite watches is a 1994 Rolex Submariner. It’s [from] my birth year. I received it when I was 21. It’s a Submariner, so the design has not changed over time, and in Hong Kong, this watch is quite common, unfortunately. This is a very special watch for me because it [the dial] is double signed to have my name and my birth year on [it]. It reflects who I am as a person because it’s essentially a unique piece. People who don’t look at it [closely] will think it is a normal Submariner. And I think that’s how people perceive me. From afar people will just say, “Oh, he’s just a home chef. He’s just being passionate about food.” But once you look deeper into the details, you start picking up on new things.
The second watch is my first vintage Rolex that I bought for myself. It was a Rolex Day-Date; a vintage from 1982 or 1983 with the Khanjar emblem on it. At the time, I didn’t understand watches that well. I was trying to understand more about different vintage watches and I was a bit more bold and brazen about how I purchased my watches. I purchased it online from a shop in Germany—this was to commemorate my first pay cheque [as an accountant], after I came back to Hong Kong, even before I became a [professional] chef. The watch was exceedingly cheap at the time. The [seller] said they’d ship it to me and then I didn’t hear back from the person for two to three months. I thought they must have run off with my money. Then, one day, the watch just turned up in a FedEx package at my door. It’s the only solid gold vintage product that I have to this day.
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Breguet Marine 2 Large Date (Photo: courtesy of Tatler Hong Kong/Zed Leets)
The third must be my Audemars Piguet. My father had purchased an Audemars Piguet in the late 1970s. It was the Quantieme Perpetual Calendar, which is the watch that saved the brand [during the Quartz crisis, when the advent of quartz watches largely replaced mechanical ones]. He bought it and never wore it, meaning to be passed on [to the next generation]. So yes, he’s passed that watch to me, but I’ve never been allowed to wear it. He showed me the watch, and we’ve decided to put it back in the safe
to leave it for the next generation. It’s quite a fitting story: a father passes a watch to his son that tells time for 200-300 years accurately. I think that’s a very fitting tribute. I spoke to the Audemars Piguet team and explained to them that my father’s watch is in the safe, and if it would be possible for me to get a Perpetual Calendar for my next generation as well. I was lucky enough to buy the US edition of the Perpetual Calendar [in 2022]. So it’s [continuing] a legacy because the current Perpetual Calendar by Audemars Piguet is the next generation of this Quantième Perpetual from the 1970s.
Breguet Marine 2 Large Date (Photo: courtesy of Tatler Hong Kong/Zed Leets)
Audemars Piguet Perpetual Calendar US Edition (2022) (Photo: courtesy of Tatler Hong Kong/Zed Leets)
Do you think the watch will ever come out of the safe?It’s so unworn that even the straps are not bent, so everything is as new as new can be. And we keep joking that whoever ends up wearing it one day, maybe like four or five generations later, if [they] accidentally bend the watch strap, the previous generations will haunt them.
What is your recipe for a great watch?As a chef, I believe there’s no such thing as a true recipe. The only thing you can do is give general guidelines of what you think will work well together. One thing I believe is one of the most beautiful things, but that has been lost in time, is the vintage Stella dials that Rolex did in the past. There’s something quite beautiful about those hand-painted lacquer dials that are very different to the machine-made styles these days. And especially now that watches are a bit more mass-produced than they were in the past and a lot more people are able to afford them, you start seeing a lot of the same ones. With hand-painted lacquer, even the same colour [is difficult to find in individual watches of the same model] because it was done in different batches or because the number of layers [of lacquer] is slightly different.
This kind of individuality is missing in the current market. It’s the same for cooking as well. Even if you cook the same dish on different days, how you season it, and the quality and sweetness of different ingredients, will change how a dish tastes—and I think [personal taste in watches or otherwise is] about individuality.
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