Macau Kitchen, a small family-run Macanese and Malacca Portuguese restaurant on St. Leonard’s in Edinburgh has recently been awarded a prestigious AA Rosette for culinary excellence.
With eight tables, Macau Kitchen is run by Chef Kei de Freitas and his wife Hoeyyn Ngu, focusing on Luso-Asian cuisine to mirror their heritage.
Luso-Asian refers to Macau Kitchen’s culinary heritage, which originates from the Portuguese settlements and inter-marriages in Goa, Malacca and Macau. All of these regions are blessed with a tropical climate and with incredible diversity of spices, cooking techniques and produce. This diversity forms the basis of the flavours our Chef grew up with. The Portuguese presence in Goa created Luso-Asian Goan cuisine, which in turn influenced the Luso-Asian cuisine found in Malacca. This multi-layered evolution also shaped the Luso-Asian fusion cuisine of Macau, the common influence all being Portuguese.
An AA Rosette is an incredible achievement, especially for a restaurant with only five tables. Chef Kei and Hoeyyn say: “We are over the moon to be awarded an AA Rosette. We have worked hard for many years and it is a recognition of all of our hard work. We want to thank our local community for always supporting us and making us feel welcome. We can’t wait to keep going and continue serving our heritage cuisine to Edinburgh”.
The AA describes the AA Rosette as: “The AA Rosette award, first awarded in 1956, was the first nationwide scheme for assessing the quality of food served by restaurants and hotels. Our team of inspectors have an unrivalled wealth of experience in assessing quality throughout the UK so receiving the award is a huge achievement not to be underestimated. The Rosette is an award, not a classification: Rosettes are awarded annually on a rising scale based on a meal visit by one or more of our inspectors”.
Source and Photos: Macau Kitchen
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