Tony Lu

Tony Lu heads the Fu restaurant group in Shanghai, China, and serves as Executive Chef at Fu He Hui. His cooking is rooted in Vegetarian Chinese fine dining built from range rather than omission, with seasonal vegetables, grains, tea and mushrooms carrying the structure. Leaves, peels and grains are treated as primary materials, and the food is shaped through control, patience and Chinese culinary memory. Shanghainese culinary identity provides the regional base for his work, while Chinese fine dining supplies the frame. Professional kitchen discipline in China from 1993 gave Lu the foundation for a precise culinary language. That training is reflected in repetition, taste calibration and a preference for control over display. Instead of treating vegetables, fungi, grains and tea as supporting elements, he works with them as the main vocabulary of the menu. The cooking joins regional continuity with the development of a vegetarian restaurant whose ambition is measured course by course. At Fu He Hui, quarterly rotating set menus run to 11 courses at lunch and dinner. Each course focuses on one key vegetable, fruit or flower, with regional tea pairings. The sequence gives the kitchen a strict cadence of one ingredient, one season and one controlled expression of flavor, texture or aroma. Tea functions as part of the architecture of the meal. Regional Chinese produce, artistic presentation and time-honoured preparation methods dating to the Ming and Qing dynasties define the working frame. Seasonal vegetables are handled with modern techniques and thoughtful plating, and artisan-made plates are created for each new seasonal menu. Ingredient, method and vessel are considered together. The restaurant’s vegetable-led cooking is marked by restraint rather than spectacle. Asia’s 50 Best has cited dishes including Tofu Skin with cordyceps flower, black fungus, daylily buds, quinoa, spinach and Mongolian leek; Pomelo Peel with olive kernel; and Eight Treasures, made with gum karaya, bamboo pith, tremella, coix seed, lotus seed, honeylocust fruit, yam and almond. The range is textural and aromatic, with fibrous, floral, earthy, bitter-edged, nutty, gelatinous and crisp elements assembled through refinement. Lu’s approach gives plant-based ingredients a central role rather than a decorative one. Tofu skin, pomelo peel and other vegetables are worked until they can carry a course on their own terms. The result is a cuisine that connects seasonal produce, regional Chinese traditions and modern fine dining in a disciplined, highly structured form. Tony Lu’s recognitions for Fu He Hui include a Michelin star, two Michelin stars, Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants No. 15 for Fu He Hui, We’re Smart Green Guide Top 100 No. 100 for Fu He Hui, and We’re Smart Green Guide 5 Radishes for Fu He Hui. These honors place him within contemporary dining as a Shanghai restaurateur and chef committed to a vegetarian fine-dining format where vegetables, grains, fungi and tea are central materials.