Building a bakery empire in Hong Kong with five locations stretching Kowloon and New Territories and selling premium pastries and breads, Vincent Lai knew from an early age that bread was more than just a childhood favourite of his.
“My mother would buy breakfast for me every morning from our local bakeries,” Vincent remembers, “it was a core memory for me.”
The fragrance, buttery consistency, moistness of Hong Kong’s signature pineapple buns, egg tarts, traditional Chinese pastries, sponge cakes, and the like hit him where it hurt the most: his sweet tooth. He became enamored.
“When I finished school in Hong Kong, I began working at bakeries across Kowloon to learn the craft.” At a list of neighbourhood joints, he learnt how to proof and create classic Cantonese pastries, growing an appreciation for the simplicity of the craft.
Yet, Vincent was restricted on creating out-of-the-box pastries and working as an employee rather than a decision-maker. After several jobs and projects working with others selling pastries in Hong Kong, and encouraged by peers in the bakery industry, he joined his partner Shuie Lau to launch LY Bakery in 2018.
LY Bakery infuses a Western sweet touch in presentation and technique, but remains firmly Hong Kong in its identity. It is a breakaway from Hong Kong’s more traditional side of pastry-making and bready desserts.
Pistachio-filled Taiwanese suncakes, vanilla ice cream pastry buns, matcha lava egg tarts, and Chinese tieguanyin tea and coffee tarts on the menu sit alongside baguettes and croissants for balance.
Prior to opening LY Bakery, Vincent travelled to Taiwan and Japan to study in Asian pasty-making and Paris to learn the craft of baguettes and croissants. “I just want to educate Hong Kong on what a real baguette and croissant should taste like.”
Eight years ago, the bakery chain’s first signature product was a line of bagels with varying flavours, filling a void in Hong Kong for quality bagels. From there, the creativity sprouted. “The key [at LY Bakery] is no limitation. I want to create pastries that I believe Hong Kong will love, with Asian characteristics.”
Their bagels, a rendition of a thick New York-style recipe, covers red bean and mochi matcha, taro, and raspberry chocolate among other flavours, relating to the Hong Kong palate. A new Danish product, launched during this summer’s Mid Autumn Festival, used a traditional Cantonese-style black sesame filling.
Whilst their sharp marketing and cultural-fusing colour pastries stocked across Hong Kong have set LY Bakery apart from local bakery chains, namely in its more modern approach to baking, Vincent and Shuie think anything but.
“We do not count ourselves as a premium baking chain, we are simply a neighbourhood bakery store to many Hong Kongers,” shares Shuie. With San Po Kong marking the chain’s first location, their expansion over eight years allows for customers “to more easily shop for our pastries all over Hong Kong.”
Pay a visit to LY Bakery today for their pastries, breads, and cake mixing a bit of Hong Kong with global twists and flavours.
