Sam

Sam came to journey design by way of the kitchen door — literally: he spent years eating his way through Sichuan, Jiangnan and the coast before realising that what he was really collecting was not dishes but people: the chef who cooks for no reservations, the tea master who opens crates most buyers never see, the family whose courtyard table is its own destination.

His journeys are sequenced like a menu: one narrative, courses in order, nothing repeated. Guests notice that the best meal of the day is never the most expensive one — it is simply the right table on the right night.

"A menu has an argument. So does a journey. Start from the one meal you would cross an ocean for, and build the days around it — the rest of China will explain itself along the way."