Chef
Lawrence
Cheong
Master Pastry Chef · Chocolatier · Malaysia
Director & Founder
C3 LAB Sweet Innovation
Also known as
Lawrence Bobo
“Every chef dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.”
The Mad Scientist of Chocolate
Known across Asia as the “Asia Chocolate Prince,” Chef Lawrence Cheong Jun Bo is one of Malaysia’s most celebrated pastry chefs — a world-class chocolatier whose work bridges rigorous technical mastery with uninhibited artistic expression.
His path into the profession began, by his own admission, for all the wrong reasons — drawn by the elegance of the chef’s whites and the prospect of playing with food. What followed was a formative encounter with a strict, brigade-minded head chef whose uncompromising discipline quietly shaped Lawrence into the artist he is today.
A natural-born spontaneist, Lawrence does not work from pre-planned designs. He creates intuitively, allowing each piece to emerge through instinct, deep material knowledge, and a fearless drive to astonish. His showpieces carry an air of dark wonder — leaving impressions that linger long after the experience ends.
Today, Chef Lawrence is the sole Ambassador for the Chocolate Academy by Barry Callebaut in the Asia Pacific region, co-founder of TEXTURE Patisserie, and Director of C3 LAB Sweet Innovation in Kuala Lumpur.
P H I L O S O P H Y
“If you understand chocolate inside and out, then anything can be a mold — anything.”
Chef Lawrence’s creative philosophy defies the conventional pastry kitchen. Where most chefs work from detailed plans, he works from instinct. His process is grounded in a deep, almost scientific understanding of materials — the viscosity of tempered chocolate, the defrost rates of different frozen layers, the structural logic of a layered entremet — combined with a fearless willingness to improvise.
“Most pastry chefs are playing — even the strict ones,” he says. “For me, I’m having fun all the time.” This philosophy of joyful experimentation drives him to cast chocolate in blenders, pot lids, and found objects, and to engineer ice cream cakes that are cross-sectional artworks as much as they are desserts.
His fundamental conviction is simple: every element must earn its place through flavour, texture, or visual impact. We eat with our eyes first, and in Chef Lawrence’s kitchen, surprise is the most powerful ingredient of all.