Chicken and Charcoal: Yakitori, Yardbird, Hong Kong, by Matt Abergel

Matt Abergel's book has just won a James Beard Award!

Chicken and Charcoal has been voted the best 2019 book in James Beard's restaurant and professional category

Skaters aren’t usually known for their consummate professionalism. However, Matt Abergel, the Canadian-born skater-turned-patron-chef of Hong Kong’s leading yakitori restaurant, Yardbird Hong Kong, is an exception to that rule.

His meticulous perfection of this simple dish of chicken meat on skewers, cooked over charcoal, has won his restaurant admirers from all around the globe. Some of them very high profile indeed.

 

Skewering, from Chicken and Charcoal: Yakitori, Yardbird, Hong Kong
Skewering, from Chicken and Charcoal: Yakitori, Yardbird, Hong Kong

Now, Abergel has won that enviable food industry distinction, a James Beard award; on Friday his Phaidon book, Chicken and Charcoal: Yakitori, Yardbird, Hong Kong, was singled out as the best ‘restaurant and professional’ publication at the 2019 James Beard Media awards.

 

Matt cooking at Shoreditch House,  London last summer 2018
Matt cooking at Shoreditch House, London last summer 2018

The book is certainly a deep dive into the creation of this extraordinary restaurant; Abergel covers bird butchery, skewer choice, and charcoal buying, as well as furniture and logo design, and the peculiarities of the Hong Kong restaurant scene.

 

Skewers, from Chicken and Charcoal: Yakitori, Yardbird, Hong Kong
Skewers, from Chicken and Charcoal: Yakitori, Yardbird, Hong Kong

And its tiny details like that that have led to Abergel’s success. Well done Matt on another well-deserved award.

 

Chicken and Charcoal: Yakitori, Yardbird, Hong Kong
Chicken and Charcoal: Yakitori, Yardbird, Hong Kong

For more on the book that sets the industry standard, order a copy of Chicken and Charcoal: Yakitori, Yardbird, Hong Kong here.