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翠花
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加入时间: 2004/03/10
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作者：翠花 在 海归商务 发贴, 来自【海归网】 http://www.haiguinet.com
品出中式茶点的时尚
尼古拉斯•兰德(Nicholas Lander)报道
2004年4月7日 星期三 出版
3月底，当代生活的三大标志 ：快车、引人注目的建筑和都市美食，在伦敦中国城附近的一处邮局旧址汇聚。
由建筑师理查德•罗杰斯勋爵(Lord Richard Rogers)设计的Ingeni大楼，从建筑防护网后脱颖而出，成为下一代福特汽车设计班子的工作地点。
但人们的多数注意力，集中于这栋大楼的底层和地下层。这里开张了英国华裔餐饮业者丘徳威(Alan Yau)最新及最博采众长的餐厅 “Yauatcha”，配有茶楼、糕饼店，并在地下层一周七天供应粤式茶点，至午夜才关门。
即便在熟人眼里，丘徳威也是一位餐饮业者中的奇才。他曾策划和创办了“Wagamama”日式拉面连锁店，该连锁店目前在别人的管理下已在英格兰南部快速扩展，最近还在悉尼开张了分店。
在Wagamama之后，他又花了200万英镑将伦敦华都街的一处银行旧址改造成“Busaba Eathai”泰式餐厅，该餐厅目前的年营业额超过300万英镑，而每位顾客的平均花费只有12.60英镑。
他还说服合作伙伴投资450万英镑，将伦敦Tottenham Court路背后的一处停车场旧址改造成“Hakkasan”时尚餐厅。
在“Fino”餐厅共进午餐时，丘先生的口气像一名大商人。他刚从莫斯科归来，他在那里拗不过俄罗斯人的强求，为一些俄罗斯夜总会业者打算开张的“Shatush”中式餐厅担任顾问。不管他的意见如何，“Shatush”在风格上将效法“Hakkasan”。
他还刚接到一家加拿大房产开发商的电话，对方希望能按特许经营方式开办“Hakkasan”餐厅。“我的答复是，我不相信餐厅能够成功地采用特许经营模式一一复制，但只要他有热情和资本，他很容易效法‘Hakkasan’ － 只要他不使用我的名称。”说到这儿，丘先生的脸上露出了一丝狡黠的微笑。
但即使是冷静世故的他，也难以隐藏对“Yauatcha”的激动之情，这不只是因为该餐厅侍者的服装将由香港电影美工师和服装设计师叶锦添设计；叶锦添曾凭影片《卧虎藏龙》夺得奥斯卡“最佳艺术指导”奖。
真正使他激动的是，他和自己的大众化超值美食理念得到了福特汽车的赏识。“梅斯先生(J. Mays)是福特汽车的设计总监，负责捷豹和陆虎之类的品牌。他希望把他手下的所有设计小组集中到一个都市环境，达到贴近顾客的效果。他还希望这些设计人员能够随时享用优质而且价格适度的都市美食。”
于是，“Yauatcha”成为丘徳威个人和职业梦想的载体。“我是广东人，因此我一直想开一间茶楼，因为按照我们中国人的看法，一起饮茶和享受美食 ，无论是糕点还是粤式茶点，是最闲适的社交形式。对于中国人来说，饮茶就好象（英国人)上酒馆。”
丘先生还认为邻近蔬果集市十分有利。“在我小的时候，我父母曾在英格兰东部经营中式外卖店。现在他们已经回香港去了。每天早上起床后，他们都会去菜场买菜，然后去茶楼与朋友共进早餐。我希望同样的情形也会在‘Yauatcha’出现。”
为了确保纯正口味，他聘请了顶尖法式糕点厨师Stephane Suchat, 来自台湾的茶艺大师，还有一名来自新加坡的特级茶点厨师。不过，令他父母感到费解的是，儿子何以凭借如此大众化的品种取得成功。
这是一个使丘徳威困惑的问题。当我直截了当地请他解读自己的成功时，他表现出少有的沉默。少顷，他总结了一些显而易见的因素。
“你必须从一开始就对整个计划进行周密安排，并准备好献出时间、精力和热情，把自己的计划付诸现实，”他说。“Hakkasan花了三年时间，Yauatcha花了两年半时间，包括三次完全重新设计，三笔向室内设计师 Christian Liaigre支付的费用，总成本将达到420万英镑。
“我想，如果说我有什么特别技能的话，那就是我一走进一栋楼，就能够在脑海中勾勒如何成功地在那里经营(餐饮服务)，这不光是顾客坐在哪里，或厨房设在哪里，而是更多关键的布局因素，比如侍者的站位以及电源插座的位置。空间规划和人体工程学两者都是关键因素。”
他清楚地知道，自己正赶上餐饮业的黄金年代，而且所有亚洲的事物，尤其是亚洲美食，正风靡一时。
“说到底，只有四种风格的美食能够风行全球，即：日本寿司、中东开胃拼盘、西班牙下酒小菜、以及中式茶点。在我创业之时，亚洲美食完全具备成功的外在因素。 毕竟，寿司和茶点已经存在了千百年 。 但没有人把这些美食提高到时尚的层次。
“到了20世纪90年代，洛杉矶有了“Nobu Matsuhisa”，悉尼有了把泰式烹调提升到新层次的 “David Thompson”，而多伦多则有了“Su-Sur Lee”时尚中式餐厅。一时间，亚洲美食具有了激动人心、健康和新鲜的视觉形象。”在丘徳威手里，这些美食还能成为生财之道。
对他来说，最扣人心弦的方面还是使这些餐厅成功地开展经营。
“餐饮业有别于零售业的地方在于，假如你有意保证质量，餐厅必须集生产与零售部门于一处，而且靠得越近越好。许多厨师在试图成为餐饮业者的过程中忽略了这一要素。”
我向他追问到，在“Yauatcha”即将开业之际，为什么他在次日还要飞往香港，尤其是他自己也承认，新餐厅的大部分菜单内容“还在我的头脑里”。
“有一家大型房地产公司请我去实地评估一个可能的餐厅开发项目，”他说。“在个人意义上，应邀回到龙的故乡，看一看我能否在那里设立具有自己的风格的中式餐厅，实在是一种莫大的殊荣。”
此次返回精神家园，可说是对丘先生在伦敦所取得的成就的恰如其分的认同。对他来说，“Hakkasan”的成功是两方面的：一方面为伦敦人提供最佳的粤式美食，另一方面为伦敦的中国人带来故乡的美味。
“Wagamama”使数以千计的英国青少年养成了在外进餐，而且健康饮食的习惯。迄今还没有其他的餐饮业者能够开张如此成功的餐厅：顾客愿意长时间排队等候入座，享受富于乐趣的进餐时光，最后还愿意再次光顾。我暗自期盼他的香港之行无功而返，因为英国仍然太需要象他这样的奇才了。
-ENGLISH
'It's not a business, it's a way of life'
By Nicholas Lander
Published: March 19 2004 18:15 | Last Updated: March 19 2004 18:15
At the end of this month three modern icons - fast cars, striking architecture and urban food - come together in a former Post Office by the vegetable stalls of Berwick Street market in London's Soho.
The Ingeni building, created by Lord (Richard) Rogers, will emerge from the cladding to house the offices of the design team behind the next generation of Ford cars.
But most of the publicity will revolve around the ground floor and basement, which will house Alan Yau's latest and most egalitarian restaurant, Yauatcha, with a teahouse, a pastry shop and a basement serving dim sum till midnight seven days a week.
Even to those who know him well, Yau is a phenomenon among restaurateurs. He was the man who conceived and created Wagamama, the noodle bar chain, which under other management has now spread across the south of England and most recently opened in Sydney.
He then spent £2m converting a bank on Wardour Street into Busaba Eathai, which now boasts sales of more than £3m a year on an average spend per diner of just £12.60.
Yau is also the Chinese restaurateur who persuaded his backers to spend £4.5m on converting a former car park behind Tottenham Court Road into Hakkasan.
Now serving 800 customers on a busy day, it is probably the third-biggest grossing London restaurant after Nobu and the Oxo Tower. And having secured an initial rent of £8 a sq ft, when the best sites are now commanding £40 a sq ft, it could rank as the most profitable.
Over lunch at Fino, Yau talked like the big businessman. He had just flown in from Moscow, where he had had his arm twisted to act as a consultant to Shatush, a Chinese restaurant that some Russian nightclub owners said they were going to open and model on Hakkasan, whether he helped them or not.
He had also just had a phone call from a Canadian property developer who wanted to franchise Hakkasan. "I replied that I don't believe restaurants can be franchised successfully, but that if he had the passion and the money he could easily copy Hakkasan - as long as he does not use my name." The smile at the end of this comment seemed deceptively gentle.
But even cool-as-a-cucumber Yau cannot hide his enthusiasm for Yauatcha - and not just because the waiters' outfits will be created by Tim Yip, Oscar-winning costume designer on the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
What excites him is that he and his approach to good-value food for all were sought out by Ford. "J. Mays, Ford's director of design, responsible for cars like Jaguars and Land Rovers, wants to move his disparate design teams into an urban environment similar to the one their customers live in. And he wants them to enjoy good quality, urban food they can afford every day whenever they want it."
Yauatcha emerged as a vehicle for Yau's personal and professional dreams. "I am Cantonese and therefore I have always longed to open a teahouse because drinking tea, and sharing food, whether it is a pastry or dim sum, is, we Chinese believe, the most informal social banter there is. It is our equivalent of going down to the pub."
Yau even finds the proximity of the fruit and vegetable stalls highly propitious. "My parents, who brought me up running their Chinese take-away in Peterborough and Kings Lynn, have now gone back to Hong Kong. They get up every morning, go to the market to buy food for the rest of the day, and then go and meet their friends in a teahouse to share breakfast. It is what I hope will happen at Yauatcha."
Yau has hired Stéphane Suchata, a top French pastry chef, Hsieh Chih Chang, a tea mistress from Taiwan, and a master dim sum chef from Singapore to ensure authenticity. Yet his parents find it difficult to understand quite how he can be so successful at delivering what is so basic to so many.
It is a question that baffles him. The only time Yau seemed lost for words was when I asked him directly to explain his success. What finally emerged were some obvious factors.
"You must begin with the end in mind and then be prepared to devote time, energy and passion to make it happen," he said. "Hakkasan took three years, Yauatcha two-and-a-half and included three complete redesigns and three different sets of fees from Christian Liaigre, the interior designer, and will now cost £4.2m.
"I suppose if I have a particular skill, it is the ability to walk into a building and envision how it will operate successfully, not just where the customers will sit or where the kitchen will be but where, crucially for example, the waiters' stations and the electric terminals can fit. Space planning and a sense of ergonomics are crucial."
Yau is not, surprisingly, a control freak although he is maturing gently after the loss of Wagamama and the less-than-successful Anda on Baker Street. When a potential partner offered him the Busaba Eathai site, his response was: "Only if I am in charge". He wanted, in his words, to "make the place not just work but fly".
Yau is well aware that not only is he living through the golden age of the restaurant but that he has been operating at a time when all things Asian, particularly food, are ultra-fashionable.
"There are really only four different food styles that can easily traverse the globe: Japanese sushi, Middle Eastern mezze, Spanish tapas and Chinese dim sum, and when I began, there was the infrastructure to make Asian food successful - after all, sushi and dim sum have been around for centuries - but not the individuals to glamorise them.
But then in the 1990s along came Nobu Matsuhisa in Los Angeles, David Thompson in Sydney, who elevated Thai cooking to a new level, and Su-Sur Lee, who did the same for Chinese food in Toronto. Asian food is visually exciting, healthy and fresh." In Yau's hands, it can also be profitable.
But the most fascinating aspect for Yau is making these restaurants work. "By Christmas there will be a staff of almost 500 and I want the whole to gel," he explains - this despite an aversion to franchising or developing a Hakkasan brand.
"What differentiates restaurants from retail is that if you want to maintain quality, a restaurant must have its manufacturing and retail units under the same roof and ideally as close together physically as possible. That is what so many chefs don't appreciate when they try to become restaurateurs. Outside the kitchen there are just too many strings to be pulled. They should stay cooking or do what Ferran Adria does with El Bulli and only open for six months a year, running it not as a business but as a way of life."
I pressed Yau as to why he was flying out to Hong Kong the following day, just before Yauatcha was due to open and most of the menu was, he confessed, "still in my head".
"I have been approached by one of the big property companies to look at a site for a possible restaurant," he said. "Personally, it is a huge compliment to be invited back into the heart of the dragon, as it were, to see whether I can set up my kind of Chinese restaurant over there."
This return to Yau's spiritual home would be a fitting tribute to all he has achieved for London. For him, the success of Hakkasan has been twofold: offering the best Cantonese food to Londoners and giving its Chinese community a taste of home cooking.
Yau is surprised that the average spend at Hakkasan is the reverse of most other restaurants in that it drops at the weekend. "During the week we have customers who order dim sum, then items from the à la carte menu and drink cocktails and wine. At the weekend, we get Chinese families who order only tea and dim sum."
But this is a further tribute to Yau's vision. Wagamama has converted thousands of teenagers to eating out and eating healthily. No other restaurateur has created restaurants where so many will queue for so long, have fun and want to return. Personally, I hope that his Hong Kong trip comes to naught - Britain still desperately needs him.
作者：翠花 在 海归商务 发贴, 来自【海归网】 http://www.haiguinet.com
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 品出中式茶点的时尚 -给parislady -- 翠花 - (10764 Byte) 2004-4-08 周四, 00:30 (1285 reads)
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