Cheong Liew (born Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) is one of South Australia's best known chefs. He first moved from Malaysia to Melbourne in 1969 to study electrical engineering, but instead became a chef.
He then became the owner of the popular Adelaide restaurant Neddys, where the menu consisted of mostly Malaysian and Chinese dishes. He used ingredients in his cooking not many other chefs dared to use at that time; such as pigs feet, whole ducks, and pigs heads. The restaurant closed in 1988 and Liew went on to become a cookery teacher. In 1995 he opened The Grange restaurant at the prestigious Hilton Hotel in Adelaide. The Grange continued to showcase Cheong's creative cuisine and became one of Adelaide's most successful restaurants. After 14 years it was announced, in November 2009, that the restaurant would close at the end of the year.
Liew has been honoured as "one of the ten hottest chefs alive" by the prestigious American Food & Wine Magazine, and inducted into the Hall of Fame in the World Food Media Awards. He was bestowed the Medal of the Order of Australia in the 1999 Queen's Birthday Honours "for service to the food and restaurant industry through involvement in developing and influencing the style of contemporary Australian cuisine.
Read more about Cheong Liew: Writing