It’s literally like the more things I throw at them, the better they are. Sometimes when we were slow, I used to look at them and be like, “Why are you making all these mistakes?” But both of them are working so much better under stress. So the two boys in the restaurant were able to do a really great service. My amazing sous chef David Lam and my awesome husband Jimmy held it down. And two weeks of that was in Portland, so I was calling in to the restaurant and doing some operations. I actually left the restaurant to shoot Top Chef Amateurs for about a month. It’s a much lower rent-one that we’ll be able to afford, which is amazing.ĭuring all this craziness, I had still committed to a few appearances and TV shoots. And after months and months of renegotiation, we came to an agreement that we all feel kind of comfortable with. We’re very lucky that our landlord was willing to work with us. We didn’t pay rent for a while, and then we ended up renegotiating a five-year extension with our landlord because I’m hopeful about the future. But we were only doing about 25 percent of what we did before. I was on the line every single day in the beginning when we reopened. Our opening was considered very successful. That was about the same time that Los Angeles County announced we could be open for outdoor dining. We applied with so many different banks and were very fortunate to be able to get our loan. I was thinking that maybe I needed to do more TV, and then just do management deals in the future where I don’t have to put so much heart and soul and our money into owning our own place.īut we tried our luck with a PPP loan. So I was actually thinking that I needed to change the direction of my career and let go of the idea of running my own restaurant with my own money. And at that moment, there were a few TV opportunities and appearance requests still coming my way. There was very minimal money sitting in the bank. Then after staying at home for two months, it was May, and my husband Jimmy Lee and I just had this sinking feeling where we didn’t know how to come back at all. When the March 15th shutdown happened, we closed and laid off everybody so they could get unemployment. It was already affecting our business before Chinese New Year in 2020. Chi was already struggling, because we are a Chinese restaurant and there was discrimination after people heard that COVID had come from China. I don’t think I ever worked in any restaurant that didn’t have tablecloths before.īut even before the shutdown in Los Angeles County, Ms. In a way, I’ve always sort of been living in the fine-dining world. One day, I’ll try to get my own Michelin star. But now that idea is going to put on the backburner for a while. Madame Chi was going to be a really elevated modern Chinese restaurant, fancy banquet-style. My ultimate goal then was to do a fine-dining restaurant that had tableside duck service. Chi was the casual idea that spun out of Madame Chi. Less than two years ago, I was looking at downtown LA locations to open my original idea, which was Madame Chi. Even when I worked for José Andrés as executive chef of China Poblano, which was a more fun and casual style of restaurant in Las Vegas, there were still a lot of fine-dining touches, components, and ingredients. I opened Guy Savoy, which was two-Michelin-starred fine-dining French cuisine. Then I went to Vegas to open Bouchon and spent 13 years of my career in Las Vegas. My first job was with Thomas Keller as an extern at the French Laundry. I came from a very fine-dining background.
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