Manfred

The Path

At Schroeder's in San Francisco, where Manfred served as chef from 2014–2016, the work was already built on pace and control. That kind of kitchen discipline tends to show up in the details: timing, sequence, and the ability to hold a room of service together without excess motion. By the time he moved into the role of executive chef at Huxley in San Francisco from 2016, the progression read less like a leap than a tightening of focus. The line from one post to the next is clear in the record: the craft was being carried forward, not reset. Chef / owner at Hong Heng Fried Sotong Prawn Mee, Manfred now works in a different mode of responsibility, one that shifts the center of gravity from managing a brigade to shaping a place. Ownership changes the terms of the job, but the throughline remains the same: the same operational discipline, now applied to his own counter. What was built in established restaurants settles here into a more personal format, with the cooking tied directly to the business.

The Work Today

What distinguishes Manfred's current work is continuity. The habits formed at Schroeder's in San Francisco and Huxley in San Francisco do not disappear when a cook moves into ownership; they become part of the daily method. At Hong Heng Fried Sotong Prawn Mee, that background reads as a working foundation rather than a story arc. His own line — “I did not really have to learn all over again.” — points to a cook who treats experience as usable craft, not as narrative decoration. The point is not reinvention. It is transfer: taking what has already been learned and making it pay in a new setting.

Signature

The dish functions as a public marker of authorship: not a break from the kitchens that came before, but the present form of that same accumulated practice. In that sense, the signature is less about novelty than alignment between cook, counter, and name.

In Their Words “I did not really have to learn all over again.”

Acclaim

Manfred's honors include Michelin Bib Gourmand (2016).