Chinese evolution

THE French had their bistronomy movement. The Spanish went molecular. The Scandinavians made locavorism cool, and America went Californian. The Japanese took everybody's style and did it a lot better; even in Singapore, Gordon Ramsay upped the hip quotient of hawker food. So what is China - and Chinese chefs - doing about its food?

A couple of weeks ago, Nestle Professional organised a symposium, The Way of the Wok, to explore Chinese food trends and the challenges of staying relevant in a culinary scene dominated by celebrity chefs and food media.

One of the symposium's guest speakers, Chen Zhao-lin, is head of a small but influential movement that is shaping Taiwan's food scene. Called Gu Zao Wei or "old flavours", their manifesto is to revive a dining tradition pushed to the fringes in the 1980s when affluence drew diners towards foreign fast food chains and western cuisine.