Going beyond chow mein

At an11,000-square-foot Chinese restaurant is just a few blocks off of Times Square, the Malaysian Chinese chef is seeking to take his food to a newer level: a fine-dining experience. It's a goal of many Chinese restaurateurs these days, reports ZHANG YUWEI from New York

Walking through an 80-foot entranceway covered with Italian marble, chef Ho Chee Boon introduces his guests to New York's Hakkasan — an international restaurant chain that aims to offer a luxurious, fine-dining Chinese experience.

"It's after lunch hour so I have some time to myself," says Ho, Hakkasan's international executive chef, while he gives a tour of the kitchen.

"I enjoy innovation in my work," says Ho as he shows some dim sum samples to his guests. "I want Western people to know that Chinese food – like other cuisines – can also be a quality experience."

The 11,000-square-foot outpost –— costing some $10 million — is just a few blocks off of Times Square. Covered by dimmed blue lights, the restaurant has a 60-foot-long bar on the side with the main dining area divided into small chambers separated by carved Chinese wood lattices. It carries a modern atmosphere of West and East.

About six months after the New York chain was opened in 2011, the Malaysian Chinese chef earned a Michelin star (out of three), the oldest and best-known European hotel and restaurant reference guide.

Ho, 41, was born to a Chinese father and Malaysian mother in Taiping, located in northern Perak, Malaysia. He started helping in local restaurants at the age of 13 and learned to make traditional Cantonese food on jobs in various locations including Malaysia, Hong Kong and Singapore, where he met Hakkasan founder Alan Yau.

Yau, a Hong Kong-born restaurateur, opened the first Hakkasan in 2001 as just an upscale Chinese restaurant in London, where he is based. It was sold to property investment firm Tasameem, an arm of Abu Dhabi's Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan — also owner of the Manchester City soccer club — in early 2008. Hakkasan has since expanded into nightclubs in its locations such as Los Angeles and is planning to build hotels around the world.

"My goal is to bring Chinese cuisine overseas and I want to change the stereotypical concept of Chinese food being only in the setting of Chinatowns," Ho says.

Innovation underway

Ho's goal echoes that of many of overseas Chinese restaurateurs these days. They aim to take Chinese food to a newer level — something beyond chow mein takeaways or Chinatowns' quick diners with simple services — to a fine-dining experience.

Lisa Tse, 36, a British Chinese restaurateur based in Manchester, England, is one of them who shares this passion. She believes food is an art, regardless where it originated.

"Hakkasan is a high-end brand and we welcome their concept into the market to encourage people to view Chinese food as quality and luxury," says Tse, who, together with her sisters Helen, her twin, and younger sister Janet, founded Chinese restaurant Sweet Mandarin in 2004 in her hometown.

"After all, Chinese food was the food of the emperors in China and there are so many techniques in Chinese cooking that are not fully appreciated," Tse says. "Any operator who can help raise the mantel of Chinese food is good news indeed."

Now the three sisters produce "the only sauce in the world to be gluten free, nut free, dairy free, soya free, and free from artificial colors, free MSG, vegan, Kosher".

"The sauces are important as we want the world to try Sweet Mandarin flavors and the brand Sweet Mandarin is the healthy alternative," says Tse.

Their sauces are sold in different parts of the world, places where they don't even have a presence including China, South Africa, Russia and Australia. The Sweet Mandarin labeled sauces, says Tse, is the recipe of their late grandmother, Lily Kwok, an immigrant from China, who opened the first Chinese restaurants in Manchester in the 1950s, even before the city's Chinatown.

"Health is important whether the cuisine is Chinese or not," says Tse. "In particular for Chinese restaurants, if they don't use monosodium glutamate and don't over load the salt, that is a good thing and hopefully a trend that will continue."

Oscar Yuan, vice-president of brand strategy consultancy Millward Brown Optimor in New York, says there is always an opportunity to change consumer perceptions about a brand or a product, especially in categories as rich and subjective as cuisine.

"The food category, specifically, has a trend in taking what has traditionally been seen as something simple and convenient and transforming it a pleasure to be enjoyed, taking upscaling to a whole new level," says Yuan.

Similar to what Hakkasan tries to achieve, different kinds of cuisines are trying to make a high-end version of themselves to give people a different experience. Examples range from gourmet hamburger outlets, with toppings as truffles, artisan cheeses, and organic vegetables to Kobe-quality beef, to gourmet pizzas in upscale settings.

"On a more mass scale, we have seen chains like Chipotle attack the Mexican food market from an angle of health and sustainability," says Yuan.

One factor of making the food high-end, obviously, is the price.

Hakkasan's prices range from an appetizer of $10 to an entrée of a three-digit price tag — a platter of Japanese abalone and black truffles for $888 (whether or not to match a lucky number of Chinese, which means fortune).

One of the flagship dishes — Peking duck garnished with Beluga caviar —is $34, and Ho says the unique ingredients used for the dish are worth the money.

"This kind of caviar is rare and precious," says Ho, referring to the Russian Beluga caviar, which is primarily found in the Caspian Sea, the world's largest sea-salt lake.

"For some 30g, it's about $300, and it can't be found in the US," he adds.

"Adding some Beluga caviar to the crispy duck skin makes it really delicious," Ho says of one of their menu innovations of making the duck dish.

"We pick the fresh, healthy ingredients for our dishes for the prices we charge," says Ho. "We never use can food, for example."

To some, Chinese restaurant brands' trying to achieve the high-end market is not a new phenomenon.

Cedric Yeh, a curator at the Washington-based National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution, shares his concern, wondering how exactly these restaurant brands can make a difference by marketing food with an expensive price.

"It's taking advantage of a stereotype," says Yeh, the curator for an upcoming exhibit on the 160 years of history of Chinese food in the US.

"When you go to these fancy restaurants, it takes it out of the normal – how many can actually go to these restaurants?" Yeh asks. "You can't influence anything when you are so expensive."

The market Hakkasan is seeking does exist when most Chinatown restaurants lack high-end, sophisticated services, says William Kirby, a professor with Harvard Business School and a historian of modern China.

"Consistency, quality and imagination" are things Kirby says are important for building these brands. "It's just not an easy thing to do but it's possible to do and do it at the highest possible standard," he says

Yuan, the branding strategist, says the broad cultural and regional specificities of Chinese cuisine actually create opportunities to target high-end markets, which increasingly value provenance and storytelling around the products.

"It gives the brand many angles from which to provide a high-end experience, from discussing the different types of peppers used in Szechuan cuisine to how the bamboo steamers create different flavors in dim sum," says Yuan, who tried Hakkasan's London chain.

But when Chinese companies step up efforts to expand overseas with a growing number of investment in volume and portfolios, building a fine-food brand, a restaurant brand in particular, is still behind some successful brands of other categories, and perhaps facing more challenges in addition to compete with well-established Western dining brands.

Still, Yuan thinks a Chinese company is "uniquely suited to craft and share these messages".

"The challenge is that there is a strong tradition of brand building from large Western companies, who have the resources and know-how to really build a high-end food brand," he says.

Tse, of Sweet Mandarins, thinks the challenge Hakkasan, as any restaurant, may face is finding a team who will "embrace their ethos and carry it through across the restaurants".

"The opportunities are to tap into a market that typically hasn't embraced Chinese food as a first choice for luxury dining," she says.

Issues around quality perceptions for Chinese companies that have been widely covered in the press could affect their brand building, says Yuan. "Chinese brands will have to manage these perceptions carefully."

Quality, consistency

Hakkasan's Ho believes in quality and consistency, which, he says, is key to make a brand sustainable.

"I think being self-critical helps," says Ho. "I consistently think about how to improve our menu, how to innovate and create new things; that's what matters," he says.

In the New York chain alone, there are about 50 chefs in full operation, most of whom are Chinese, at the lunch and dinner hours. Ho, as executive chef, helps the company develop overseas locations. That's about a dozen now worldwide including London, Miami, Los Angeles, Abu Dhabi, Mumbai, Dubai and New York.

After more than 10 chains opened outside of China, the Chinese restaurant brand launched its first chain in Shanghai in March.

"It is a huge differentiator and draw for Chinese consumers to see foreign brands entering into China – it provides a level of exclusivity and quality that appeal to the rapidly emerging middle class," says Yuan of Millward Brown.

Starting overseas is a valuable asset to bring to the Chinese market, particularly when it comes to food, Yuan explains. "Chinese consumers are curious and open to trying different cuisines, particularly when it's a foreign take on the cuisine they know so well."

Ho splits his time between London and the rest of Hakkasan chains. "I will spend more time in the US in the coming months," he says, referring to the five outposts in the US out of Hakkasan's current 12 all over the world.

On occasions when Ho could sit down and eat at any of them, chefs there would get him to sample new dishes.

"I don't quite like the so-called fusion style," says Ho of the emerging trend in Hong Kong in recent years.

Tiny details in cooking make a difference, he says. "Wood or coal stove for simmering soups would taste differently."

Ho says he enjoys the freedom he boss gives, which allows him to show new ideas and creativity to make the menu better – the reason why he has stayed with the company for so long.

"That helps me accomplish my goal – it gives me the opportunity to create something special and better quality," he says.

Hakkasan also focuses on localizing its menus based on different locations, with 40 percent of locally created dishes based on the original menu.

"We would create menus to tailor the local demands and on what ingredients we can find locally to make something different on the menu," he says.

It's probably Ho's ability to adapt to new places, passion for cooking and his open mind to share his recipes that have led him to where he is today.

"Only when you teach everything to others, you will reach where you need to innovate and create new things, that's how I look at it," says Ho. "Innovation and fear often don't exist at the same time."

Before launching a new Hakkasan in a new place — either a country or city — Ho would explore the city and experience its cultural nuances.

"It's important to learn about the culture, traditions, and even the history of a place, and that could reflect on the creation of our menu," says Ho.

When he is not cooking, he reads.

"I read a lot — mostly Chinese classics and history books," says Ho as he talks about a plot in the Dream of the Red Chamber, one of China's four classical novels, set in the18th century. He recalls details of several of some 400-plus characters in the story, remembering each one's personality.

It's always tricky to ask a chef to pick his favorite in his own menu. But he answers it in a smart way: "I enjoy my mother's family BBQ the most," he says. "I would give her three Michelin stars."

Sweet Mandarin

Three sisters, born in Manchester, England, in the 1970s, quit their jobs in London for one goal: to start a Chinese restaurant.

They returned to Manchester and started, Sweet Mandarin, to honor their family legacy and their Chinese roots.

That was in 2004. Since then, Lisa, Helen and Janet Tse have built it into one of the UK’s most recognized brands with an award-winning restaurant and bestselling book, Sweet Mandarin with an endorsement from author Amy Tan.

Helen a lawyer, Lisa a financier and Janet an engineer staked everything on a dream and made Sweet Mandarin one of the main players in the restaurant business, as well as the literary world.

A trip back to Hong Kong in 2002 changed their lives when they rediscovered where their grandmother grew up and how difficult it had been for the single mother of two to start all over again in Manchester when she moved there.

The three sisters followed in the footsteps of their mother, Mable, and late grandmother Lily Kwok , who opened the first Chinese restaurant in the UK in the 1950 after she immigrated from Hong Kong.

Today Sweet Mandarin-labeled sauces are sold in different parts of the world. "Places where we might have a presence – and we thank God for this blessing," says Lisa Tse.

In the UK’s Chinese community where second or third generation of British Chinese — most of whose families started from the restaurant business as the first generation immigrants to the country — are trying to start a different style than their families, the Tse sisters did it differently.

"Being a British born Chinese person, I think I have the best of both worlds," says Lisa.

The family story of three generations of hardworking, strong Chinese women keeps them moving forward to achieve their dream.

"In the next five years, Sweet Mandarin will be the leading premium retail brand in Pan Asian food and drink products," Lisa said.

Contact the writer at yuweizhang@chinadailyusa.com