Walking into Juu.Ku, chef Andrew Fung’s new restaurant in Terwillegar, is like climbing into the sleek interior of a red-and-black lacquered bento box.
Divided into sections, Juu.Ku is designed to offer diners several different ways to approach its pan-Asian menu. Couples may enjoy the side-by-side seats at one end of the restaurant, while larger groups might want a dim sum-style roundtable. No matter where you sit, you’ll have a view of three large and stunning portrait paintings with Japanese iconography by Tim Okamura, a Sherwood Park-born superstar of the art world.
Juu.Ku is the Japanese word for “nineteen,” or rather XIX Nineteen, the name of Fung’s flagship restaurant located next door. While his first spot immediately earned the Hong Kong–born chef a reputation for tireless attention to food and service when it opened in 2012, his new venture is the restaurant that Fung, now 47, has wanted to open since culinary school at NAIT.
Driven by a creative east-meets-west collision of style and craft, Juu.Ku reflects Fung’s roots, but also his evolution as a chef. And with the success of XIX Nineteen tucked under his chef whites and the backing of loyal investors for the $2.2 million build, Fung says the time feels right to make his dream come true. “Nineteen was a great show,” he says. “We wondered, can we do another great show?”
The answer is yes.
We began our night at the cozy bar, sipping an Umeshu Sidecar. Heady with the floral scent of plum wine, the cocktail paired well with two appetizers: a poké taco finished with a salty snap of Canadian caviar and a classic NYC Chinatown pork and shrimp eggroll with a crunchy shell. For our next course, we moved to the sushi bar. Munching through the signature Juu.Ku roll, a collaboration of cream cheese and crab meat with spicy mayo, we marvelled as chef Jack Lee prepared sushi with a blow torch and a razor-sharp knife while answering numerous questions by diners. It was impressive, and just plain fun to watch.
Fung took several research trips to Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong for Juu.Ku’s menu, getting inspired by classic Asian dishes like Peking duck and xiaolongbao (soup dumplings). Even the extensive cocktail list is anchored by those traditional elements, from the citrusy smack of yuzu in the Yuzu Sour to the condensed milk found in the Vietnamese-inspired coffee martini. The deliciously tangy garlic green beans are tossed with that Hong Kong staple, XO sauce. The stand-out Kurobuta pork char siu (honey-glazed and barbecued) is served with a small dish of sawsawan, a Filipino vinegar-based dipping sauce that balances the sweet meat. That same char siu can be found stuffed inside a bao bun with pickled carrots and fresh herbs on the upscale dim sum menu, which at eight items is much more approachable for inexperienced dim sum diners.
Altogether the Juu.Ku experience is curated to please patrons, down to the tiniest detail. Each table setting is adorned with a miniature dragon-shaped metal sculpture. The dragon cradles a soup spoon and a pair of chopsticks, a tribute to Fung’s Hong Kong childhood, when he’d fidget with similar utensil holders at wedding banquets.
Fung recently brought 200 of the dragons home in his bag from Hong Kong — a small symbol of a culinary dream realized. He says the curio is a touchstone for Chinese people of a certain age. But I suspect everyone will find the dragons, along with the whole affair, no less enchanting.
This article appears in the July/August 2025 issue of Edify
