Jamie Oliver has been trying to speak Cantonese to promote his new restaurant in Hong Kong – and it didn’t go entirely to plan.
Making a stab at the local Chinese dialect in a light-hearted YouTube video, he announces: “I will open an amazing Italian submarine.” He also promises that the restaurant will be “very slippery”, before collapsing into giggles.
Like other tonal languages, Cantonese can be difficult for new learners as a slight change in inflection can change the meaning of a word entirely.
Oliver, 38, has a string of restaurants in Britain, Australia, Dubai, Ireland, Russia, Turkey and Singapore.
He is set to open the first Hong Kong branch of his “Jamie’s Italian” chain in the city’s Causeway Bay shopping district in the coming months.
His first attempt to say “Causeway Bay” in Cantonese came out as “car crash”, while the second sounded like “bronze bed”.
Known for his crusades against unhealthy food, Oliver’s restaurants, TV series and cookbooks have made him a multi-millionaire.
