Howard's way

Born in 1966, Cai had an unconventional start to his culinary career. He worked as a civil servant in China, but later decided to further his knowledge by studying in Australia before moving to the United States to work in chemistry in 1992.

The food in the US could not match his expectations as a gourmet, so he started to research how to alter ingredients in a lab, which in turn led to him to discover a revelation about Chinese cuisine-it can be made in scientific way.

"It turns out that for meat soup, it only needs 40 minutes to cook, since after that there is no more protein to release before calcification sets in," Cai says, adding that he conducted hundreds of experiments.

After studying the makeup of the ingredients most widely used in Chinese cuisine, Cai tried to develop his own dining concept that used fresh, seasonal and quality ingredients to create the "deliciousness" of his contemporary interpretation of Chinese cuisine.

He set up his first Howard's Gourmet Workshop restaurant in Guangzhou in 2005, and expanded it into northern China this year after setting up his successful Hong Kong outlet in 2015.

Cai chose the newly opened landmark mall WF Central in the Wangfujing area of Beijing as the location for his restaurant as it has a view of the Forbidden City.

"It's the best time to start in Beijing, as the logistics here help me get all the ingredients I need in time," says Cai.