Sunday Lunch with Tony Ferreira

Tony has called Hong Kong his home for most of his life. Born here, he moved to Vancouver when he was eight years old but often spent summer holidays in Hong Kong visiting his grandparents and extended family. On one visit, he had an epiphany while strolling the bustling streets of Causeway Bay. ‘Something just hit me: “I need to be here”,’ he says. ‘The lights, the people, so many different kinds of restaurants — and it was just amazing how much there was to see. Hong Kong is like no other city. It’s just special.’

Back in Vancouver, Tony told his mother he was moving to Hong Kong, and a week later was on a plane heading back to be a part of the opening team at Zuma. He later met Christopher Mark, co-founder of Black Sheep Restaurants, and eventually joined the Black Sheep team.

Interestingly, one of the first things Tony tells me about himself is that he never thought he’d be a chef or work in restaurants — in fact, he’d originally aspired to be a criminologist. He was studying forensic science and working part-time at an iconic rib house in Canada as a dishwasher when, after a several months in the job, he was asked to cover for a salad chef who’d called in sick. Long story short, Tony discovered that he had a natural aptitude for cooking, and his boss offered to sponsor his culinary school studies. ‘Everything just made sense,’ he says about his segue from the forensic sciences to the culinary.

When we get around to sampling the Cypriot salad, Tony tells me he calls it a ‘tasty cereal’. I’m not normally a fan of cereal, but this salad of puffed crispy buckwheat, yogurt, fresh pomegranate and a few other touches is an explosion of textures and flavours — crunchy, tangy, savoury, sweet and creamy.

Tony was previously chef at other Black Sheep venues including La Vache! (soon to open at Pacific Place), Carbone, Chôm Chôm and Burger Circus. Now heading up all of the group’s restaurants in Wan Chai, he’s a good person to fill me in on the neighbourhood.

‘The people here really take care of the shops, the alleys, the streets — just everything. People are very respectful of each other. It’s one of the coolest things about this neighbourhood. Everyone here is very respectful towards each other. It’s the perfect balance between shopping, dining and residential,’ he says.

As we dip bits of our warm pita into the creamy hummus and tangy tzatziki, he mentions that one of his favourite workday activities is the family meal because ‘Wan Chai makes the best family meals’. Each day, he chooses one of the restaurants he oversees and enjoys a meal with the staff of whatever they’ve decided to make that day. Korean dishes, ribs and cornbread, curries — it could be anything. And when the man who loves work so much isn’t at work, he’s an avid reader whose current fascination is feng shui. Top tip? ‘Keep clutter to a minimum.’

While the pandemic has challenged and changed how businesses are run and how people interact with each other, for Tony and the Black Sheep team it has also given them opportunities to give back to the community. They worked with Feeding Hong Kong to prepare meals and deliver them to elderly residents in the New Territories, feeding others as they fed their souls. ‘It was amazing to see these elderly women and the strength that they showed. They were always so happy to see us,’ he says. ‘Being able to deliver food to them during a typhoon was one of my proudest moments.’