Hummingbird creates a buzz

A globe-trotting chef serves creative cuisine in a charming setting

By CLAUDIA SOSA / YANGON

dreamt up the menu, he was most definitely doing so in Spanish. I can just picture the slender Kiwi chef in dream land, traipsing all over Latin America, taking a little guacamole from here, a little chimichurri from there, and re-creating traditional dishes using local Myanmar ingredients, along with a US$26 imported steak or two.

The menu covers everything from empanadas to ceviche, along with some creative pairings, such as salmon cubes served over a mango puree and topped with green onion. Mr. Third has been “cheffing”–as he likes to call it–for 37 years in places as diverse as Zanzibar and Belize, and as much as he loves different flavors, it all comes down to keeping things simple.

“I love the simplicity of food,” he says, and the dishes at Hummingbird excel when he heeds his own words. Take the ceviche ($7), which is classically done, initially sour, then moderately spicy and perfectly textured. In Mr. Third’s words, “It’s a very simple dish to do, but it’s a very simple dish to get wrong.” He gets it right, and his ceviche is not even the tiniest bit tough.

Similarly, the sea bass ($14) is accompanied by a remarkable beetroot risotto. Presented on a bed of chimichurri, the taste is rich but at no point overpowers the fish, and the grains are creamy, never clumpy.

Some of the most innovative pairings, however, such as the prawn and watermelon dish adorned with random bits of dried coconut, fall a little flat.

We hope you don’t mind a bit of construction,” said the pleasant female voice on the other end of the phone. I paused to wonder whether she knew I lived in Yangon. If the threat of digestive mayhem isn’t enough to dissuade me from eating at any number of street stalls,

“ there was no way some bare walls and plastic sheeting would keep me from stopping by at the much buzzed-about Hummingbird, which I visited in its pre-grand-opening iteration.

Hummingbird is named after the delicate creature known for its rapid wing movement, often found in South America. When Chef Wayne Third

Overall, though, the cuisine is solid, the dishes are beautiful to look at, and the chef has his heart in the right place. Especially when it comes to dessert. Mr. Third can talk about Latin America for hours, but you can’t get the French pastry chef out of him. Hummingbird is already doling out sumptuous chocolate tarts and lemon meringue pies, and there were whispers of in-house sorbets to come.

Hummingbird’s renovators have gone out of their way to preserve and rediscover some of the building’s original characteristics, and the place offers high-ceilinged, dimly lit, leather sexiness and an open rooftop patio with great potential and charm.

In its pre-opening appearance, it seemed to me as though the place has fused together an amalgam of Yangon’s existing successes—the font and style of Port Autonomy’s menu; the ginger beer and vodka-based cocktails that made Union such a success; and the dark, wooden and leather furniture set atop rescued colonial-era tiles at Gekko—all under one roof.

It may just be a question of finishing the renovations, but I do have to believe there’s more than one winning combination possible in Yangon, and that a place like Hummingbird can arrive at that magical combination of delight and surprise, in and out of the kitchen.