Cunningham (left) hams it up with his friend Chef Yao Yang as they prepare a nose-to-tail dinner from a whole pig. [Photo provided to China Daily]

The dinner was a hit after about a month of planning, practice and "some really, really bad jokes in the kitchen". Yao, creator of the restaurants Saffron and Chi, is also a well-known food blogger and host of the culinary TV show Yao Yang in My Kitchen.

Presentation was key: While all edible parts of the pig were used, there were no recognizable (read: disturbing) body parts on plates. The opening course of braised pig's hock, for example, came with curls of crispy pig's ear, pork jelly, radish and cucumber salad.

Last month, Cunningham invited Andrew Ahn, chef-owner of Ssam Korean restaurant in Beijing, to team up for a similar feast spiked with contemporary flavors from his country. The two started the dinner by teaching guests how to make kimchee.

While Cunningham actively uses social media to showcase his food creations, his posts are just as likely to be about other chefs' cooking. His recent WeChat moments have highlighted "the best lamb ever" at 99 Yurts, a Mongolian eatery north of the capital, and a vacation to Thailand he's just returned from with his wife and daughters. Those posts had foodie friends swooning as the Cunninghams munched their way through the famous street food in Bangkok and other Thai cities.

They would have understood back home.

"I remember Dad would take us to a beach town for vacations, and we'd go to a Thai restaurant he'd read about. The food was so mysterious, interesting, stimulating - I just loved it."