A name synonymous with fine food and wine and munificent entertaining, Don Hall has been in Macau for most of the past 50 years. Posted to Macau in 1962 as part of the British diplomatic service, his career and life in Asia is reminiscent of a character in a Graham Greene novel. He once ran a highly successful electronic manufacturing business, before turning his hand to his true passion, establishing a wine and gourmet import company, Fine Beverages Limited. For the past 30 years he has also been an active member of the Chaîne des Rôtisseurs, an international gastronomic society, and five years ago he was invited by the headquarters in Paris to open the Bailliage National de Macau, of which he is president.
It is perhaps not surprising then that in his sensational 4,000 square foot Lake View Gardens home overlooking Nam Wan lake, he has built a separate wing off the kitchen for casual dining, wine tastings and to house his sizeable stock of 250 bottles. Two Transtherm wine storage cabinets store the bottles at a range of temperatures depending on their differing needs. Here Don keeps several of his treasures including exquisite wine from France, Italy, South Africa, Australia and Napa Valley California.
“I buy wine to drink, not to collect”, he remarks as he guides us through his beautiful apartment.
Home comforts are important for a man who is out entertaining so often. He explains that being big in stature, his first priority when buying the apartment was to open up everything and enlarge the space, removing false ceilings, walls, floors, and windows, so he could start from a blank canvass.
Don’s daughter, Angela of Angela Hall Design in Hong Kong, is a graduate of the Royal Chelsea College of Art and she handled everything; demolition, space planning, design and furnishing. Having previously worked with organisations such as Hirsch Bender on projects like the original Mandarin Café and Grissini in the Grand Hyatt, she threw her talents into producing a skilfully, lovingly designed new home for her dad.
There is a strong Indonesian and Thai influence that permeates throughout, from the Indonesian teak wood flooring to much of the furnishing and decorative art. The living room furniture is designed for maximum comfort, with over-sized sofas and chairs in soft plush fabrics. The focal point – huge sliding glass doors, typhoon-proof and brought in from Germany – lead to a sizeable balcony overlooking breathtaking lake views.
As the apartment takes up one entire floor of the building, the entrance lift lobby is only used by Don and his guests, so it too has been given a make-over and been transformed into an almost spa-like atmosphere.
Kook, from central Thailand, is Don’s partner of five years. She shares Don’s love of good food and is a superb cook herself. The kitchen, with granite tops from Hong Kong and quality German appliances from Siemens, is impressively laid out with vast fridges and cooking range, and is perfect for all the couple’s home entertaining.
With such an impressive abode, it is hard to imagine wanting to walk out the front door. But Don has always been a man of action, and when he is not running his business or travelling the world in his role as president of Chaîne des Rôtisseurs, he takes a keen interest in the work of Macau’s Institute for Tourism Studies, regularly attending student wine appreciation and dining training sessions.
He is also a member of the Macau Wine Society, and in charge of the Ordre des Coteaux de Champagne in Macau, which promotes the wines of Champagne, their unique features, their ways of consumption and everything that contributes to their reputation and their image. Adding to his busy schedule, at least twice a week Don is involved in wine tastings hosted at various hotels and restaurants, where the general public are invited.
Not someone known for sitting still for long, when asked what his goals are for the rest of the year, Don simply says ‘travel!’ This month he will attend Coteaux de Champagne events in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Taipei, in June he will be in France visiting his contacts in Champagne, and in June there will be Chaîne des Rôtisseurs dinners in Kyoto, Osaka and Tokyo.
Don Hall studied electronics before joining the Royal Air force in England. He arrived in Macau in 1962, as the British Consulate’s Signals Officer for Macau.
In late 1967, at the time of the Cultural Revolution, he looked after the communications for the diplomatic service and the military, working with Cable and Wireless who owned the telephone company in Hong Kong, and with the telecoms company in Macau.
By 1970 he had left the service and, leveraging his expertise, started a manufacturing company making telephone answering machines and wireless alarm systems. Very quickly his company also started making electric kettles, toasters, hairdryers, heated hair-rollers, coffee pots and the like for renowned brands such as Moulinex, Clairol, Remington, Carmen, an assortment of Japanese companies, and even Vidal Sassoon.
Don retired from the electronics business in 2008 and decided to pursue his love and considerable knowledge of wine.
“In 2003-4 with the start of the new casinos, all the Americans were coming in to town and didn’t know where or how to source and import beverages”.
Don decided he could bring many of these labels in himself and he opened Fine Beverages Limited. The company buys and sells wine, storing 50-60,000 bottles of wine in a temperature-controlled warehouse. He also imports caviar – wild from Russia and Iran, farmed from China and Italy – and Spanish hams, sausages, cheeses.
Fine Beverages represents some of the finest names in wine including: Veuve A. Devaux Champagne and Chateau Kirwan from Margaux; from Australia, Parker from Koonawarra Estate, Xanadu from Margaret River and Barossa Valley’s Two Hands; Hesten Vinyards from Napa Valley, USA; Galardi from Campania, Italy; New Zealand’s Schubert from Martinborough; Morande from Chile; and Egly-Ouriet Champagne, “which is in every Robuchon restaurant around the world and Macau is no exception”.
