Weng Yongjun

The Climb

Since 1987, Weng Yongjun has moved through the ranks of chef, Executive Chef, F&B manager, F&B director, and hotel general manager, building command across both kitchen practice and hospitality operations. That progression matters in trade terms: it suggests fluency not only at the stove, but also in service rhythm, guest expectations, and the systems that keep a restaurant functioning under pressure. Today, founder and Executive Chef of Yong Fu, Weng Yongjun brings that long ascent into a single restaurant framework at Yong Fu (Huangpu). The route from cooking line to management has shaped a view of the restaurant as an operating system, where kitchen, market, and season are not separate concerns but parts of the same daily discipline.

Today

At Yong Fu (Huangpu) in Shanghai, the work is centered on Ningbo cuisine rather than a fixed repertoire. The season matters, and so does the daily arrival of wild-caught seafood from Ningbo. That supply line gives the cooking its immediacy, tying each service back to the coast through the raw material itself. The style favors timing and restraint over display. What matters is not only the ingredient, but the interval between coast and kitchen, the handling after arrival, and the decision to place a dish where it belongs in the season rather than freeze it into permanence. In Weng Yongjun’s hands, the menu reads as a working calendar, adjusted to what the sea brings and how he chooses to shape it.

Signature

Weng Yongjun's signature dishes include Eighteen Cuts, Golden crispy chicken with sesame and pepper, Ningbo tangyuan, Yellow croaker roe aspic, and Handmade glutinous rice balls. Read together, they show a kitchen working from regional identity, with attention to texture, finish, and proportion. The range moves between crisp and delicate, savory and sweet, without losing the throughline of Ningbo cooking or the control required to keep those differences coherent on the plate.

In Their Words “I started as a chef, and while working in hotels, I always had many ideas about cooking, but it was difficult to implement these creative ideas within a hotel.” “I always hoped to be able to decide on the kitchen's menu myself, so I eventually decided to open my own restaurant, where I could freely realize my ideas.” Those remarks point to a chef shaped by hotel systems and by the constraints that come with them. They also explain the move toward ownership: a desire for menu control, and for a kitchen where ideas can be put into practice on his own terms.

Recognition

Recognition around Weng Yongjun’s cooking rests as much on the named dishes as on the title itself. That fits the work: seasonal cooking is measured dish by dish, and its value is in how clearly each plate captures a moment and communicates the chef’s intent.