Celebrity Chef Sam Leong is the Director of Kitchens for the Tung Lok Group, which encompasses more than 25 world-class restaurants in Singapore, Indonesia, China, Japan and New Delhi.

Widely recognised as a trendsetter in modern Chinese cuisine, Sam has represented Singapore at some of the world’s most prestigious culinary events, including the Annual James Beard Foundation Awards (1999), Friends of James Beard Gala Dinner (2000), World Gourmet Summit, Sydney (2001), Master of Australian Food & Wine (2002), Annual St. Moritz Gourmet Festival, Switzerland (2002) and the Flavours of Asia event at Napa Valley, California (2004).

His list of accolades include being named Best Asian Ethnic Chef of the Year at the World Gourmet Summit (WGS) Awards of Excellence in 2001, 2002 and 2004, and Executive Chef of the Year and Chef of the Year in 2005. He was also named Chef of the Year at the Hospitality Asia Platinum Awards (HAPA) 2006/2007.

Sam is also a familiar face at the annual American Wine & Food Festival, a charity drive supported by the Puck-Lazaroff Charity Foundation, to which he has been invited as a guest chef for eight consecutive years. In 2005, Sam became the first Singaporean chef to join Singapore Airline’s International Culinary Panel of world-renowned chefs. That same year, he made his first appearance on Singapore television, in a Chinese language cooking programme, King of Kitchens. A year later, he was invited to be the chef-mentor for a television cooking competition, Star Chefs.

He was trained in the culinary arts by his father, a Malaysian chef well-known for his shark’s fin dishes. Sam worked at the Kuching Hilton and Novotel Bangkok before becoming the executive chef of Jiang Nan Chun at the Four Seasons Hotel, Singapore, at 28.

Sensations: A Tasting Menu of Chinese-inspired flavours is Chef Sam’s second cookbook. His first, A Wok Through Time, which traces his journey as a chef, was published in 2004.