Yau wows U.K. with creative concepts

Nation's Restaurant News, July 26, 2004 by Amanda Mosle Friedman

In Impressionist painting, the term "slice of life" refers to ordinary moments and movements exquisitely captured by artists. Those moments are as insignificant in their totality as they are stunning in the way the artist portrays them.

Alan Yau, a 40-year-old London restaurateur recognized for his "outstanding contribution to London restaurants" at the Carlton London Restaurant Awards in 2001, exhibits that Impressionist trait. So far, he has turned inspiration gleaned from a noodle, a nametag worn by a Thai waitress and a glass, among other things, into highly regarded quick-service and fine-dining concepts located worldwide.

Hakkasan, his Chinese fine-dining restaurant in London, is the only Chinese restaurant ever to win a Michelin star. Wagamama, the Japanese noodle bar concept he started in 1992, put noodle bars on the English map. Yau sold the chain, which now boasts about 30 units worldwide, in 1997. Busaba Eathai, his two-unit Thai canteen-style concept has lines of people waiting for tables that spill out onto the street almost every night.

Yauatcha, his latest creation, is the first London restaurant to serve dim sum all day long and possibly the first Western restaurant to claim a Taipei tea house mistress as a consultant. And Anda, his Italian restaurant, is getting rave reviews.

"To be honest, I haven't talked about this, but one early influence, which has been really fundamental, was this American self-help guru, Anthony Robbins," he said. "In the past, I was always unsure whether I should do this or that. Anthony Robbins helped me to redefine my views on failure."

The son of Chinese parents, Yau came to England from Hong Kong at age 11 to live in the provinces, where his father was running the kitchen of a chop suey house.

"My father told me that if I wanted to go into business, I had to be the best, and at the end of the day, food is everything," Yau said. "I wanted to compete with the best in the UK, and they are in London. Equally, if I were to go to America, it would be to New York, where many of my English compatriots have had a hard time. The only oxymoron is that while you have to be really passionate, I don't really love the business."

He studied business, political science and philosophy in college but grew frustrated with his lack of vocational skills upon graduation. So he turned his attention to fast food.

"I somehow intuitively felt comfortable with the concept," Yau said of quick service. "It is systematic, there is standardization, outsourcing. At that time I found that idea sexier than [fine] dining."

The interest brought him back to Hong Kong, where he trained with McDonald's for a short time before eventually turning down an offer to run a franchise in China. Then he joined KFC in London, where he further refined his operational skills, designing kitchens with "short production lists" and individual workstations to fit different parts of the menu.

"I was purely process driven," he said. "I identified a small menu and was concerned with quality along with fast-food consistency."

Those lessons helped greatly with the founding of Wagamama, which means "naughty child" in Japanese. Interested in the concept of portability in fast food, he conducted extensive research and controlled tests on Chinese food before concluding it did not have "hand-held potential."

"Analytically, I find it very hard to turn an Asian concept into proper fast food," he said. "I don't think--in the real sense--that it performs well in that parameter." But noodles and rice were another matter.

"When I gave up the opportunity to take on the franchise idea for McDonald's, a friend of mine introduced me to the ramen noodle. I had no idea what it was, but I saw the DNA for a fast-food concept. I saw soup and noodles and topping, and I just thought, 'Wow, this is amazing because the potential is so great.'"

Wagamama has long communal tables and is built around a healthful lifestyle inspired largely by Robbins, the self-help guru, who was a vegetarian for a short time. When Wagamama was launched in 1992, it was a radically innovative concept. Today Wagamama units can be found throughout England as well as in Glasgow, Scotland; Dublin, Ireland; Amsterdam, Holland; Sydney, Australia; and Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Yau's Thai restaurant idea came to him while on holiday at the Chiva Som spa in Thailand with fellow London restaurateur Amin Ali of Red Fort and Soho Spice. Yau said he was struck by the sensuality of the beautiful Thai waitress who was serving him dinner one evening. Her nametag read "Busaba," the name of a Thai flower. Although he never had considered creating a Thai restaurant, Busaba inspired his next concept.

In 1999 he and Ali opened the first Busaba Eathai, an atmospheric, Thai-fusion canteen-style restaurant in London's Soho neighborhood. Yau refers to the concept as a "level-two Wagamama." Currently there are two units in London and more on the horizon.

"In order for me to develop something, I have key anchor components," Yau explained. "It starts as a simple concept, a kind of visualization around which the concept grows. Strong ideas have really hot key anchor components. The idea is strong in its own right. For example, I have a Japanese concept in mind centered around a seating system, and I know that even with only that, it will be a success."