Last month, aqua’s chef Romeo Morelli came together with us and Té Bo’s chef Sebastian Lorenzi for a one-night-only four-hands dinner to celebrate our beneficiaries – one of whom, Ah Hei, helped out at the event – through a dazzling menu spotlighting idyllic Italian summers, and that gave me the massive pleasure of reconnecting with a friend I had first met during his tenure at the Piedmontese restaurant Castellana. 

We had connected multiple times before, mainly at his then restaurant in Central, but our conversations mostly revolved around his food (and my dozens of questions about how to make handmade pasta at home as great as his), as you’d expect between a former food editor and a chef who had begun working in his family restaurant’s kitchen when he was just 12 years old. But this time, we had the opportunity to really sit down and talk about his experience in the culinary world.

Starting his journey working for his parents in their cosy family-style restaurant in Asti, Piedmont, when he was barely a teenager, Romeo’s growing passion for cooking led to a short-lived career in engineering before he finally decided to become a chef. “I was working a nine-to-five in Italy as a surveyor, and it was a very secure job with a great salary, but I just didn’t like it,” he recounts. “It didn’t give me the satisfaction I wanted. I enjoyed working with my hands. I quit in just three months, and I don’t regret that decision at all.”

From there, he returned to his family restaurant before embarking on an adventure across the globe, bringing him to vibrant cities like Abu Dhabi, Stuttgart, and Singapore, before he arrived in Hong Kong right at the height of the pandemic. Having lived and worked in such large cities before, I ask if he had to adapt to Hong Kong when he first came.

“No, it was not a complete shock,” he says, “but I’d say it’s a totally different lifestyle here. In Singapore, the city is crazy, but it’s nowhere near as energetic as here. There, you feel like you’re in a big city, but there’s a calmness to it, sort of like a big city in Europe. But here? Wow, there’s a lot of energy everywhere, and it’s very exciting. I saw things here I’ve never seen before in my life. I think you might be able to see something similar in New York or London, but nowhere else. You can tell the Hong Kong market is very tied to how people live here, so when the local economy is up – say the market went up 20% a day – you’re seeing guests come in for an expensive lunch right away.”

But it’s not just the spending habits that Romeo says sets Hong Kongers apart from the diners he’s served elsewhere in the myriad of countries and continents he’s worked in. With a large expat community and locals who are well travelled, naturally the standard of knowledge about food becomes high.

“People here understand what they are eating, and they’re not just eating for fun,” the chef explains. “They’re eating because they want it, because they want to know the cuisine and the chefs, and they care about what they eat –  it’s totally unique here. Diners in Hong Kong have very good knowledge of what they’re eating; they’re not just eating to fill their bellies, they’re eating with consciousness.”

The mention of eating simply to feed bellies was a concept I had previously discussed with chef Cedric Satabin of Alain Ducasse at Morpheus during my time as a food editor for a magazine. On a visit to his two-Michelin-starred restaurant, he told me how some hotel guests were all about the gambling in Macau, and because they had the money, they’d come to his restaurant for lunch, but showed a lack of appreciation for the food. I shared with Romeo how these diners would sit down and ask for a five-course fine-dining lunch to be served all under 30 minutes so they could get back to the Blackjack table.

“That’s crazy,” Romeo replies with a chuckle. “Fortunately here, I’ve never encountered that, and that’s why I was convinced to stay in Hong Kong. I’m learning a lot from my guests. They’re a good challenge to have, and I evolve myself whenever I receive feedback from them. I also keep pushing to improve because Hong Kong has so many world-class restaurants.”

And that we do. Just the other week, during a pizza workshop at Black Sheep’s Motorino with chef Roberta de Sario, I was told how she had risen to a 63rd ranking on the global Best Pizza list for 2026. Somehow, more than 9,000 kilometres from Naples, Hong Kong has one of the best pizzerias on the planet – and that’s just one example. Whether it’s restaurants like The Chairman, Caprice, Wing and Ta Vie or bars like Bar Leone, COA or MIUS, our F&B industry is among the strongest in the world, and not just for local Chinese cuisine. I ask how Romeo feels to be part of this before our hour-long conversation was cut short because lunch service demanded his return to the kitchen, the domain he knows best.

“Actually, I’m very honoured,” he admits, “because it means that I also have value here. If I didn’t provide something that met a certain standard, I wouldn’t still be here. Nobody would’ve hired me. So being in this city makes me proud in a certain way, but I also know I have to move my ass, because otherwise I’ll be gone. 

“But sometimes, it’s also difficult for me, because I have – what do they call it?” Imposter syndrome, I suggest to him. “Yes, imposter syndrome. I always think that I’m not good enough. I think this is something many people deal with, and it’s tough. But you can also use it as energy. In a way, it’s due to this insecurity that I’m still here today, because it pushes me to constantly try to do even better for the future.”