【Monday Foodie】The Lab of Meat Aroma: Donkey Restaurant L’IDIOT RESTAURANT

Text by TRAVELER Liao Hongxin

“Can you smell that strong cheesy aroma?” said Fudy Chen Chang-fu, owner and head chef of Donkey Restaurant. It’s currently 4 degrees Celsius, though it usually hovers near zero. We’re inside Donkey’s dry-aging room, a space that looks like a freezer container. On the shelves, large cuts of beef are neatly arranged, labeled with different cuts and aging days, their dry textures and vivid crimson hues exposed. Aside from the cold, as Fudy said, the air is indeed filled with a rich cheese-like fragrance.

It’s the natural cheese-like flavor released by fat during the aging process—the beef is “breathing.” The dry-aged steaks popular in restaurants nowadays are often pre-aged meats that are simply further processed and cooked. Even when aging cabinets are present, some are merely used for storage. Chefs often hurriedly retrieve the meat or work with vacuum-sealed cuts. Had we not visited Fudy’s “aging container” today, who would have known that beef “breathing” could produce such a wonderful cheesy, salty aroma?

Handcrafted Aging, Pure Original Flavor
This is what Fudy means by true artisan flavor. The original Donkey Restaurant championed a philosophy of authenticity, but the second-generation venue, now located on the former site of Fontaine Hall on the first floor of Taipei’s Grand Formosa Regent Hotel, has significantly increased the proportion of handmade elements. Vegetables and spices are grown by Fudy himself on Yangmingshan Mountain, the bread is made by the in-house bakery team, and there’s extensive experimentation with aging ingredients like beef, pork, and duck. In addition to building a truly breathable aging room, Fudy also created a live-culture drying cabinet, maintaining an internal environment of around 16°C and 76% humidity. By leveraging microbial fermentation, he enhances the flavor of dried meats—such as turning cherry duck breast into prosciutto or barley-fed pork belly into pancetta. The pursuit of richer, deeper flavors marks the evolution of Donkey Restaurant. A more “mature” Donkey plays with aging, driven by the experimental spirit of craftsmanship.

“I was looking for a ‘fire-type’ grill,” Fudy said, pointing to a metal box that looked more like a hotel dishwasher than a grill. Admittedly, its appearance is far less impressive than the beloved Wood Stone grills favored by top chefs. But this is what Fudy describes as his “magic” secret weapon. “Most grills rely on gas, or are like Wood Stone’s open-flame charcoal grills. I wanted to emphasize the smoky ‘roasted’ flavor from charcoal—especially after talking to a Finnish chef about the natural flavors achieved through wood and firewood smoking there. That convinced me this was what I was after.” Later, Fudy sourced this Spanish Josper charcoal oven, which combines both “charcoal grilling” and “smoke roasting,” through overseas peers. He even became meticulous about the type of wood used. “In Taiwan, people usually burn longan or acacia wood, while abroad it’s apple or cherry wood. But I love bourbon for its versatile character, so I bought white oak barrels from Jack Daniel's bourbon to use as firewood—just to infuse that bourbon flavor into the food,” Fudy explained.