Maggie Liu %s Fell in Love with Taipei’s Warm Hospitality

Text & Photos / TRAVELER Luxe Travel Magazine

 

Why did beautiful chef Maggie Liu from Hong Kong choose to settle down and start her business in Taipei? The secret lies in her wonderful experience of traveling solo in Taiwan during high school.

 

Independent from a young age, Maggie chose Taiwan—the closest place to Hong Kong—for her first-ever solo trip during high school. Not knowing a single word of Mandarin, she ventured out on her own in Taipei for three days. She took a photo at Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, which she still keeps to this day.

 

Maggie said the most memorable thing was seeing an unfamiliar dish at a street stall. Out of curiosity, she asked about it, and the vendor actually sliced a big plate for her to try, even enthusiastically explaining the dish—something she had never experienced in Hong Kong. There were many such instances, making her deeply feel Taipei’s rich warmth and friendliness. At that moment, a thought flashed through her mind: “If one day I don’t live in Hong Kong, I want to live here.”

Growing up, Maggie frequently traveled between Hong Kong and Taipei, getting to know the city better and making more friends there. Having visited over twenty countries, Maggie believes that Taipei is the best place to live in the Chinese-speaking world. Whether it's food, entertainment, clothing, food, housing, or transportation, everything is convenient—and so she decided to settle in Taipei.

 

To open a French restaurant in Taipei, Maggie—who has loved cooking since childhood—went to Nice, France, to refine her culinary skills. She chose French cuisine because of her love for its romance and elegance. But as she delved deeper, she discovered that French cuisine not only has a long history and many regional varieties but also boasts meticulously detailed recipe literature due to its emphasis on food culture, which made her more and more interested and eager to explore further.

 

Maggie poured all her energy into running the Olive Bistro, even giving up her favorite long-term travels. The interior features off-white paired with light wood tones, with walls adorned with reproductions of century-old advertisements and black-and-white photos from 1940s to 1950s France, creating a warm, retro, and stress-free dining space—even welcoming children and pets. In this refreshing space, you’ll find high-end, exquisitely prepared dishes where both ingredients and preparation are top-notch. Take the saffron-spiced prawns, for example: they use real, freshly caught king prawns, served with a sauce made from premium Spanish saffron. The sauce is rich yet highlights the prawns’ freshness, crispiness, and sweetness, making you exclaim, “So delicious!”

 

Maggie has been interested in the flavors of food since childhood. When exploring night markets in Taiwan, she would naturally try every kind of snack, and Shilin Night Market and Linjiang Street Night Market, being the closest, became her most frequented spots.

 

The foods she fell in love with in Taipei are pepper buns and rice balls with egg. She used to love the pepper bun stalls near National Taiwan University and National Taiwan Normal University. Holding a freshly baked, warm pepper bun and taking a bite, the combination of the fatty meat and crispy outer layer in her mouth was simply irresistible—so much so that she drools just thinking about it. Sadly, she can no longer find that particular stall. She also loves rice balls with egg from soy milk shops. Maggie explains that for a good rice ball, the cruller must be crispy, the pickled radish salty, and the egg fragrant—the combination makes it delicious. The rice balls from Taipei’s soy milk shops are all of a certain standard, and nearly every one is good.

 

When she misses home flavors, Maggie likes to visit Hong Kong dai pai dongs and Kau Kee Seafood Restaurant. The owners of both restaurants are from Hong Kong, so the dishes are very authentic. Hong Kong Dai Pai Dong serves homestyle Cantonese congee, noodles, rice, and dishes. Owner Mr. Cheung insists on preserving the tastes of Hong Kong from the 1960s and 1970s—like fried dough rolls (炸两)—which are even hard to find in Hong Kong these days. At Kau Kee Seafood Restaurant, owner Mr. Ho Pui-yuen originally came to Taiwan as a Cantonese chef. He has worked as head chef at several star-rated hotels and restaurants, so the restaurant serves elaborate, high-quality dishes with rich ingredients—all signature dishes that will never disappoint guests.

Busy with the restaurant and filming work over the past year, Maggie’s life has been quite hectic. She enjoys travel plans that serve “double duty.” She often goes to Taipei’s Vieshow Cinemas in Xinyi for movies, since there’s a shopping mall right next door where she can pick up necessities, and the street performers create a French vibe that she really enjoys. When restocking at the warehouse in Neihu, she’ll also browse the home decor stores along Xinhul Road. She says her daily life is quite homebound, so she loves choosing home decor items to add charm to her living space. One of her favorite places to shop used to be the home decor stores along Section 7, Zhongshan North Road in Tianmu.

 

 Traveler Profile—Maggie Liu (http://goo.gl/ni0IQ7)