{"id":89492,"date":"2026-06-22T06:46:40","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T06:46:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/89492\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T06:46:40","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T06:46:40","slug":"qa-jean-pierres-host-in-chief-on-christmas-in-the-alps-and-his-favourite-spots-to-celebrate-in-hong-kong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/89492\/","title":{"rendered":"Q&A | Jean-Pierre\u2019s host-in-chief on Christmas in the Alps and his favourite spots to celebrate in Hong Kong"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first time I ate at Jean-Pierre<\/a>, soon after it opened this spring, I counted 10 birthdays. By the third of the evening, my dinner companion and I exchanged a look. By the sixth, it was absurd. At eight and nine, the staff \u2013 bow ties, white shirts, the whole bit \u2013 delivered sparklers to adjoining tables in unison. Resistance was futile.<\/p>\n

The French bistro in Central has become a destination for celebrations. \u201cIt\u2019s every night,\u201d says Marc Hofmann, managing director of Black Sheep Restaurants who co-founded Jean-Pierre and named it after his father. He suspects at least a handful of birthdays every evening are fake \u2013 thrown for embarrassment\u2019s sake \u2013 but is unbothered. \u201cWe do it with the same level of care and love,\u201d he says. It\u2019s people who are making fun of their friends in the same way his cousins used to playfully tease his brother and him as children.<\/p>\n

\"BottlesBottles of Champagne at Jean-Pierre, where every night\u2019s a party. Photo: Jocelyn Tam<\/p>\n

Some diners have complained that all the birthdays are too much. The team\u2019s response? Turn it up. \u201cWe\u2019re not doing right by guests if we tone down the celebration just because we\u2019re annoying someone else,\u201d Hofmann says. \u201cThis is the ethos of the restaurant: it\u2019s f\u00eate tous les soirs.\u201d Party every night.<\/p>\n

What did a special occasion look like for you growing up?<\/p>\n

Chaos. I have a quite large family. We used to spend Christmas at my cousins\u2019 in the Alps. For me, Christmas is about snow, the tree, presents, a lot of food and long days of cooking. These were my first memories of drinking wine. I was maybe three or four years old. It comes from my dad, who was an epicurean and would give us tastes of food and drink.<\/p>\n

Tell me more about the people.<\/p>\n

My dad was the ultimate host. He would bring very good wines, good food \u2026 and a lot of opinions on the food. My mum jokes about how he never put a foot inside the kitchen. Sometimes people say, \u201cJean-Pierre<\/a> was an amazing chef.\u201d I told my mum this and she was like, \u201cWhat are people talking about?\u201d He was just someone who liked to celebrate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first time I ate at Jean-Pierre, soon after it opened this spring, I counted 10 birthdays. By…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":89493,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[16],"tags":[50,190,114,351,39,3260,1053,1202,3828,7855,82,789,714,4293],"class_list":["post-89492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-alps","tag-alps","tag-asia","tag-business","tag-china","tag-economy","tag-hong-kong","tag-lifestyle","tag-news","tag-opinion","tag-south-china-morning-post","tag-sport","tag-technology","tag-us","tag-world"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116792419136982652","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}