Get to know Anita Lo

It’s sad, but true: There aren’t as many female chefs in the restaurant business as there are men. Asian-American females in the industry? The number is even smaller. Perhaps that’s why Anita Lo, chef and co-owner of restaurant Annisa in the West Village, is such an inspirational figure. It’s not only because she’s one of the few publicly recognized, Asian-American restaurateurs/chefs, but she’s also an example of someone who continuously works hard to keep her dream of running her own empire of restaurants alive. It’s not easy, she says. But she loves it.

Restaurant Annisa, with its contemporary American cuisine, has been highly-acclaimed by food critics and publications nationwide. Her new Asian fusion restaurant, Bar Q, is set to open sometime this year on Bleecker Street. Anita herself was named Food & Wine Chef of the Year in 2001, was a contender to cook at the White House, and has appeared on CNN, Food Network, NBC, CBS and the Martha Stewart show. The list of accolades and appearances can go on.

With all that said, it’s clear that Anita has a lot to brag about. So it was such a pleasant surprise to learn how down-to-earth the ever-so-talented chef was when I had the privilege to sit down and chat with her.

In English, Annisa is derived from Anne, which means “gracious” and “pure.” In Arabic, it means “women,” a central theme at a restaurant which boasts a wine list that celebrates women in the wine industry (all wines are made by female vintners and/or made at vineyards with female proprietors).

The name also seems entirely appropriate for a restaurant co-owned and operated by an accomplished female chef. Here’s more than a glimpse of how Anita has gotten as far as she has and how much further she wants to go.

ASIANCE: What have been the greatest challenges of working in a commercial kitchen or running a restaurant as a woman?

Anita Lo: Well um, I think as in all businesses, most businesses, it’s male-dominated, especially professional kitchens. Being female has helped me in some ways since I’m one of the few, so I get publicity for my restaurants, which is good.

On other hand it was hard, especially when I wanted to advance. The hours were long and I’d often be the only woman in the kitchen. Yeah, it was hard. Like this one time, I wanted to move to the hot station at one restaurant but I didn’t move as fast as I wanted. But who knows if it had to do with my gender.

ASIANCE: Do most people have to move from cold to hot stations?

Anita Lo: Yes, hot is more intricate in terms of making sure the heat is right, whereas the cold is less about timing of heat and requires less skill.

ASIANCE: Have there been any other challenges you’ve encountered? Like coming up with the business idea for your restaurant(s)?

Anita Lo: I think I’ve been really lucky and I can’t complain at all. I know lots of women who had had a hard time raising money. A lot of people didn’t stick with it and all these opportunities just pass you by on some level. But it’s really a challenge to stick with it.

ASIANCE: What made you stick to it?

Anita Lo: I had to do it. I kind of think that with this business it’s either you have it or you don’t. It’s kind of like an illness…something you have to do. I almost feel like I had no choice, something I… well, just had to do.

I actually didn’t want to open my own restaurant until a later age. I had seen working kitchens and loved the atmospheres since I didn’t like to dress up and I was a night person. Just being around all the food was always fun.

I just remember working at Bouley and Chef David Bouley asked me if I wanted to open my own restaurant and I just said no because it just looked so crazy and it was just too much of a headache. So he asked me what I was doing here and I said “I don’t know.” I was 20 at the time, something like that, and just wasn’t thinking in those terms then. Later, I realized that in order to have the creative freedom that I wanted, I was going to have to open up my own restaurant.

ASIANCE: When did you start cooking?

Anita Lo: I started cooking the summer after my junior year in college. I was studying French and studied in France the summer before. I wanted to be back in France so I ended up taking French cooking classes instead. [She went to the prestigious Ecole Ritz-Escoffier for her culinary degree.]

ASIANCE: Have you overcome any challenges as an Asian-American in the kitchen?

Anita Lo: Well it’s hard to say…I come from a very multi-cultural background. Both of my parents worked so I was raised by various nannies, one of which was Hungarian. I basically grew up with various cuisines like Mexican food. My parents spoke different dialects so they never taught me Chinese. This was back in the 60s and they wanted us to assimilate so I am very much Americanized. I grew up with my stepfather who was a WASP.

Not to down-play my Asian heritage, but I basically had to learn a lot of the Asian culture since the media was coming to me because I look [Asian] and they’d ask me about Chinese New Year and I was like “well, I don’t know… let me find out.”

You know, it’s not that I wasn’t interested in that stuff, but much of my knowledge was in Asian flavors. My point of view was an American one. But I even knew more about French cuisine than Asian because I was formally trained in that area.

ASIANCE: So you never encountered any problems like racial bias?

Anita Lo: Not really. I mean there was this one time I walked down the street in my chef whites with my dogs and someone made a comment about my eating them. But other than that no. I’m lucky that I haven’t had any real difficulties.

ASIANCE: Do you have any favorite foods?

Anita Lo: I like everything, but I am a big sushi/sashimi person. There are very few things I don’t like. I guess I’m not really into green peppers, but I’ll still eat them. I love all foods. I try to keep an open mind about everything.

ASIANCE: What other hobbies do you have outside the kitchen? Or is food your life?

Anita Lo: Well you sort of have to be monomaniacal to make it in the restaurant business. So yeah, I like to garden and fish, both of which are related to food. I do love my bike. I ride it everywhere. Hmmm…what else do I like to do? I read…I love fiction. I read lots of fiction. That’s about it. I used to play the piano but I don’t anymore so it’s not even fair to say I do. I just don’t have time.

ASIANCE: What are your hours like?

Anita Lo: I’m basically on-call 24/7. Since Annisa is 7 years old and I’ve got the best sous chef that I’ve ever had, it basically runs itself and I’m very lucky in that respect. I’m still here on the line cooking most nights of the week and I do the ordering, I do lots of shopping for groceries, like I just went to the greenmarket and I still have to go to Chelsea Market a bit later, but now since the restaurant is so well-taken care of I can go off to do other stuff. I have a partner at a dumpling bar called Rickshaw, and so I go twice a week to check it out and do various things there.

I’m also in the process of opening up another restaurant on Bleecker Street near here. It’s going to be an Asian place. Everyone thinks that Annisa is an Asian one…so ridiculous, but that one is going to be sort of an upscale Asian barbeque. It’s going to be very fusion.

ASIANCE: What do you foresee for yourself a few years down the line?

Anita Lo: I hope to open up many restaurants in the future. You can’t do this without a plan. It’s too physically demanding and you can’t do this forever…to be constantly on the line cooking into your 50s so I’d like to manage different restaurants. Like we have 2 different Rickshaw Dumpling Bars, and these will continue to grow and I’d like to continue being a part of that.

Um, the new restaurant on Bleecker Street… I could feasibly clone that. I’m interested in other concepts as well. I like opening restaurants and I like doing different concept work… eh, stuff like that.

The new restaurant will be called barQ, which I’m hoping to open February 2008. But you never know with these things. We thought it was supposed to be November 2007, but no. Everything gets pushed back with these things. It’s just part of the business.

ASIANCE: What would you say is different about the kitchens or culinary world between France versus the U.S. or New York?

Anita Lo: I’m not quite sure what kitchens in France are like today, but when I was working there, it had a very military-like atmosphere. You worked so many hours there. When I did my internship in France, I would work from 8 a.m. until 3 p.m., take a one hour break and then work from 4 p.m. until closing time, which would be 11-11:30 p.m. There was not enough time in a day to get 8 hours of sleep. And that’s just how it was done. Then you have the boss…it’s very hierarchical and very exacting.

It can be like that here in the States. But not all like that or as extreme.

You know, it works over there though. What works great over there is that you’ve got people who have got such a long-standing culture of food that you can open a restaurant for 5 days a week and you only have one seating. So things are different in France and people are going to eat everything for the most part. Whereas over here, we have to a lot of times on Fridays and Saturdays we have people who are afraid of a lot of things on the menu. You know… you order salad with various parts taken off. Which is fine… I guess. But people tend to be less open-minded in the U.S. and New York. In that respect it’s better in France. But here, there’s such a culture of food that you’ve got great markets and if you’re conscious about it, you can know where the food is coming from. I like to go to the greenmarkets.

I would never want to run a kitchen military-style or be a disciplinarian. I am very demanding, believe me, you can ask my staff and they can tell you. But nowhere near how some chefs can be in France.

ASIANCE: How important is it to have a good relationship with your staff?

Anita Lo: For me right now, since I’m doing so many projects, I don’t spend much time with my staff. During the day I’m running around. I do a lot of paperwork, etc. In the beginning I was with them all day.

But it’s really important to me that I hire people who are going to be happy and can talk to me and be an adult about it. I think it’s very important that we all sit down together for a staff meal almost everyday, except when it gets way too busy and they have to eat quickly on the line.

A good relationship is important but on the other hand, it is a job. If I want you to put more salt in it, you’re going to put more salt in it! I mean I don’t think anyone really questions that anyways.

ASIANCE: What are your staff meals like?

Anita Lo: We all take a turns. I cook on Fridays. I really like cooking the staff meal. You can make something different. Everyone eats it and you have immediate satisfaction. We have a pretty multi-cultural staff so we have different foods from all over the place. One of my waiters made a staff meal and she’s Turkish so she made this big Turkish meal and it was really fun. We have interns from different places as well and it’s great because I really learn from these staff meals.

ASIANCE: What do you think is lacking these days? In the U.S.? Or New York specifically?

Anita Lo: I definitely think New York needs more women chefs. More women chefs doing high-end restaurants. We’ve got plenty of chefs doing bistro-like places and comfort-food, but less plated, less creative ventures. Yeah, we definitely need more women chefs.

ASIANCE: How did it feel to beat Mario Batali in Iron Chef America in 2004?

Anita Lo: It was fun! Mario is a real gentleman and he’s hysterical so you’re basically being entertained by him the whole time. He’s just funny and a good guy. And he’s really smart! Yeah, it was an actual competition and you only have so much time. I didn’t know where anything was in the kitchen and I really wanted to win so it was little tense, definitely. But in a fun way. The secret ingredient was mushrooms so they gave us 5 different kinds. I did 5 different dishes each highlighting the distinct mushrooms.

I’d love to do it again but I haven’t been invited back. They called me for “The Next Iron Chef,” but I didn’t make it to the final cut and I guess it’s because I don’t really have a TV personality. I’m not really bubbly enough. And you know… I don’t look like Rachael Ray.

ASIANCE: What would you say are your greatest accomplishments to this date?

Anita Lo: Hmmm… I don’t know. I’m still working on it. Personally, I’d like to have more peace of mind. But then I don’t know if I’d be as successful because I’m very critical and can be very critical of myself and wish I could stop doing that. But on some level that drives me.

ASIANCE: Who is the most inspirational person to you? Or what inspires most of your work?

Anita Lo: No one person certainly. What inspires my work is usually traveling, which leads to discovering other cultures. I call my cuisine Contemporary American. America is a huge melting pot and you bring in many influences from anywhere so I like to learn about new ingredients and new techniques, etc. I love to eat and taste new things… many things inspire.

ASIANCE: Do you have any advice for aspiring chefs or restaurateurs?

Anita Lo: Go try to work somewhere first. Do an internship. Don’t just go to culinary school. Do research thoroughly before doing so because most people, and I’d say 9 out of 10 people, who graduate from culinary school are not working in the industry within their first year. After 5 years, 9 out of 10 are also not working in the field.

The grueling hours and labor-intensive work is worth it for me. But it has to be your passion …if it’s even a question for you about working 6 days a week or you’re thinking about not doing it…then you should just not do it. You’re going to think you’re suffering anyways, but it’s a matter of thinking of whether you think you’re suffering is worth it in the end.

Annisa
13 Barrow St.
New York, New York 10014
www.annisarestaurant.com