Yes Chef! Sustainable Fine Dining with Chef Adam Catterall of Roganic
Asia is one food-crazy continent! We take great care to pick restaurants based on culinary vibes, rankings on international gourmand guides, mentions in magazines, Instagrammability, and added hunger. Yes, Chef! features the region’s chefs' stories of love and labour in kitchens that have made some of our restaurants the next big thing in Asia.
Leading the charge at Roganic Hong Kong—Mother Nature's sanctuary in the heart of Causeway Bay—is Head Chef Adam Catterall, the culinary virtuoso behind the city’s growing sustainable fine dining movement.
With over 15 years of experience at elite kitchens, Chef Adam merges culinary expertise with a designer’s eye, infusing every dish with relentless creativity.
Since Chef Adam joined Roganic in 2019 as a sous chef, he has been instrumental in shaping the restaurant’s vision, working alongside British culinary pioneer Simon Rogan MBE and Executive Chef Oli Marlow. He took on the role of Head Chef in 2023, leading the team with a sharp focus to a kitchen already known for its trailblazing ethos.
The one MICHELIN Star and MICHELIN Green-Starred restaurant has long been celebrated for its pioneering approach to sustainable dining. Chef Adam continues that legacy, maintaining a deep connection to the sourcing process and sourcing locally wherever possible.
Roganic Hong Kong moved from its initial location in Sino Plaza in September 2024 and reopened its new home in the sleek Lee Garden One in February 2025. Their new menu utilizes by-products from menu ingredients that would otherwise go to compost, as well as a new flexible sharing set menu format. This new chapter stays true to Simon Rogan’s principles of prioritizing hyper-local ingredients, zero-waste techniques, and responsible gastronomy.
The Beat Asia sat down with Chef Adam to dive into his personal culinary journey, the creative inspiration behind Roganic's new menu, and what it takes to hold onto a MICHELIN Star plus Hong Kong’s very first MICHELIN Green Star.
When did you first begin your culinary journey and what brought you to Hong Kong?
My career began quite early, when I was around 14. I started working in a local restaurant near me as a Pot Washer, cleaning dishes in the north of England. I fell in love with working in the kitchen and it just snowballed from there. In between, I dabbled with graphic design at university, but after that, I went back to the kitchen.
I first visited Hong Kong on holiday in my early 20s, and I fell in love with the city. I love the variety of cuisine here!
What was the process of reopening Roganic Hong Kong like?
I don't want to say smooth – it was challenging, but it's to be expected.
We had a few [activations before the reopening]: we did a pop-up residency in Taiwan for six weeks, which was fun. And then there was a lot of work involved in getting Roganic open and with menu development. We decided very early on we didn't want to do any of the same dishes that we had at the previous restaurant. So obviously that's huge, creating a new menu and concept. A lot of thought went into this.
Congratulations on retaining Roganic's MICHELIN Star and Green Star. What does this award mean to you and your team?
It’s great to be recognized with a MICHELIN Star, especially after being open for such a short time- just a few weeks before the awards. Our whole identity at Roganic is about sustainability and supporting local which is all-encompassing in that award, so it's super special and a great achievement for us to retain the Green Star.
What's one behind the scenes challenge people wouldn't know about maintaining a MICHELIN Star and Green Star?
Sourcing is always a challenge in Hong Kong, especially when you're so strict about sourcing locally. The farms here are really good, but they can be quite limited in quantity.
We sometimes look to places like Taiwan as an alternative when [produce] isn't in season here. It can be very dependent on the weather, which means certain times we might be expecting a product, and all of a sudden it's not available, whether that's due to heavy rain or because we haven't had rain for a few weeks.
This means that we either have to look at ways of preserving [ingredients] or being able to tweak a dish, and you have to be quite adaptive to the local weather in Hong Kong. The humidity is a big one, as a lot of things won’t grow if it gets too humid, but we can plan for it because we know the season when humidity kicks in.
What was your creative process like behind the new menu?
It always starts with the produce. We look very closely at what's growing here and what season it is.
Originally, we were planning to open in December, so we had a whole menu written for the December season of Hong Kong. We had to change a few dishes because we were two months delayed. But those, we can put on the back burner, as they might come back in the future, so they're never wasted.
What are some defining moments that have shaped your journey as a chef?
In my first role as a Head Chef, I've gained knowledge from Oli [Marlow], who's our Executive Chef, Simon [Rogan], and our previous Head Chef Ash [Salmon], on how to run a successful group of chefs and be a leader.
Being able to work alongside the great chef Simon Rogan opened my eyes to a lot of things. He put such a huge emphasis on the ingredient and the provenance of it and taught me that sometimes you don't have to do so much with ingredients – if they are fresh and grown in the correct way, it will do the work for you.
It taught me the lesson that less is more sometimes – and always that question of: does that dish need that extra ingredient?
How are you taking a holistic approach to sustainability in your kitchen operations?
A lot of it comes down to managing waste and the waste that is produced in the kitchen. It's not always about how you dispose of things, or reuse things, but about how to use certain parts of products that may not be used usually.
A lot of the byproducts of things that are used in the kitchen go into our soft drink pairings and all the juices we serve. We have a huge soft pairing menu, and lots of different flavors.
For example, some of the tomatoes from our tomato dish [Farmhouse tomatoes in perilla and coal, fermented pistachio, and winter shoots], that are starting to go a little bit too ripe, we turn it into a tomato water, and it’ll be a pairing to go with the tomato dish.
Roganic's menu spotlights unique ingredient pairings, like the fermented pistachio with Nantau tomatoes. Can you break down the thought process behind this dish?
When we think about that tomato dish, we want it to be well balanced. We think about the acidity, you want a creaminess, a richness, and sweetness in the dish. It's all about balancing the flavors and textures. So, although the dish looks quite simple, it has a lot of elements involved in it.
On the base is a fermented pistachio sauce. The pistachios make it have this nice, meaty, complex flavor when it gets fermented, with this rich umami flavor. The sugar goes really well with the acidity of the tomatoes, and it was the first time we did it with pistachios (before we did it with pumpkin seeds). I was pretty happy with how it came out.
Do you have a favorite creation on the menu?
I think the tomato dish- it's quite unusual. It's always good to have a special and interesting vegetarian dish on a menu, and it’s something that we're quite known for. We have a lot of vegetarian and vegan customers who really appreciate what we do and it’s really fun to create new things for them.
What's one item on the menu that you feel reflects your personal approach to cooking?
The lemon lychee dessert is super interesting – I really love the fresh flavor. We serve it as a palette cleanser in the menu. It’s something to refresh the palette after the savory dishes before the next dessert.
It has different layers: fresh lychee, and then a butternut custard, so it's really smooth, rich and creamy, and then a lemon snow. For that, we use local perfume lemons and the snow is like frozen rocks in texture. Then we serve it with a Douglas fir oil.
What is the story behind this dish?
Most of our stories go back to the same place, it’s always about what we can get from Hong Kong and what’s in season.
We wanted to use the perfume lemons that were in season, so that’s where it all began. We were like, what can we pair with the lemons, what goes well? And the dish evolved from there.
What’s one misconception about sustainability in fine dining that you wish more people knew about?
People understand the value of expensive meat and fish, but it's a bit more difficult to try and translate that into more of a "humble produce," like vegetables and fruits, so I'm trying to show the value of those to our guests.
The Hong Kong market is still into caviar, sea urchin, and really expensive things. That’s one of our challenges [here], but it also makes us stand out from the crowd. We’re doing something different than a lot of places. That comes from Simon Rogan, that's what he believes in, what we want to do, and what makes us who we are.
You have spent years immersed in Hong Kong’s culinary scene. How do you think the city’s food and culture influences your approach at Roganic?
The breadth of different restaurants and bars and the whole story in Hong Kong is ever changing, there's always something different. But it’s really inspiring to see how different styles of food all come together in one city. It’s a great way to learn new things, new ingredients, and skills from working with people from different cultures. Hong Kong is quite unique in that sense.
How does Roganic's new layout and open kitchen influence your operations?
When we were first thinking about the restaurant, we wanted to have something that was more casual, fun, and less like fine dining.
We didn't want it to be too stuffy, and that was one of the ideas, to have more of an open kitchen. It creates more of theatre as well, I always love to go into a restaurant where you can see the chefs working, because you get a better connection with them. Something that we chefs like to do is go out, serve the dishes, and explain the dishes to the guests. It's more of an interactive experience.
Looking ahead, what are your goals for Roganic?
We want to continue to evolve and maintain our position as one of the most sustainable and best [dining] spots in Hong Kong. That's something we're looking to keep improving upon and developing, which can come from finding new suppliers and [exploring] different ways to become more sustainable.
To make a reservation at Roganic Hong Kong, visit their website here.
Stay connected to Chef Adam on his Instagram. For more information, visit Roganic Hong Kong on their website, Facebook and Instagram.
Location: Shop 402 – 403, 4/F, Lee Garden 1, Causeway Bay Hong Kong
Opening Hours:
Lunch: Wednesday to Sunday from 12 PM to 2 PM
Dinner: Wednesday to Sunday from 6 PM to 9 PM
Enjoyed this article? Check out our previous Yes Chef! profiles here.
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