Imperial Treasure Fine Teochew Cuisine

Cold crab, steady standards

Chilled flower crab arrives cold enough for the flesh to hold its line. Alfred Leung, Chef at Imperial Treasure Fine Teochew Cuisine in Tianhe District, Guangzhou, China, sets the broader discipline around that kind of restraint through the Imperial Treasure group. His work has long been tied to consistency, first after his move from Hong Kong to Singapore in 1981, then through the restaurant group he founded in 2004. At this Guangzhou dining room, opened in 2019 at Taikoo Hui on Tianhe Road, the house applies that standard to Chaozhou cooking rather than spectacle. The room holds one Michelin star and four current awards, but the more useful reading is on the plate: seafood served with its sweetness intact, marinated meats cut for texture, soups that carry pepper, preserved greens, and heat without turning loud. Leung’s stated belief that wine belongs inside the full restaurant experience also matters here. Teochew cooking gives little cover to a heavy hand. The seasoning has to sit close to the ingredient.

Marination, steaming, and the quiet cut

The program is à la carte, built around the old Teochew habits of chilling, marinating, stewing, steaming, and frying. Chilled Flower Crab is the clearest gesture: swimmer crab steamed, cooled, and served so the natural sweetness remains the point. Three Kinds of Marinated Combination brings goose meat, cuttlefish, and braised pork offal into the same discipline, each piece depending on the depth of the soy-led liquor and the knife that follows it. Stewed Pomfret Fillet with Salted Vegetables and Tomatoes works in another register, using preserved vegetable and acidity to frame the fish. The kitchen also turns out fried tofu skin roll with ground pork, water chestnuts, shiitake mushrooms, and dried shrimp, a dish whose craft is in the contrast between brittle skin and the seasoned filling beneath it. In November 2025, the group introduced a Chinese Wine List across its Michelin-starred restaurants, including this Guangzhou address, curated with CH’NG Poh Tiong, also known as ZHUANG Buzhong. For a cuisine that prizes mellow flavors, that choice reads as part of the method rather than decoration.

The room at Taikoo Hui

The restaurant sits inside Taikoo Hui, but the work in the room moves at a slower temperature than the retail floor around it. Service is formal, with the measured pace expected of a large dining room built for business tables, family meals, and shared platters. Soft ambient lighting, modern lines, and traditional Chinese references give the room its polish without asking the plate to compete with it. Conversation can stay at the table. That matters when the pass is sending out cold crab, marinated cuts, pork tripe soup with salted mustard greens and peppercorns, and desserts such as Tao Suan soup or deep-fried taro with sugar. Nothing about Teochew cooking rewards haste. The craft sits in timing, temperature, and the decision not to push a sauce past the ingredient. Chilled Flower Crab is at Taikoo Hui.