Celebrities, it seems, are more fickle than the rest of us. Perhaps it's a consequence of having their every whim catered to, but Hollywood actors and rock stars seem to change their mind about what's hot every other week: in fashion, hotels, nightclubs, partners and restaurants. Especially restaurants. This is not something that is lost on Michael Chow. His first Mr Chow restaurant, opened in London in 1968, was a regular haunt for everyone from the Beatles and the Rolling Stones to Marlene Dietrich and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. The restaurants he has opened since, in New York, Seoul and two in Los Angeles, have followed suit, being patronised by every celeb worth their fleur de sel - for a while at least. After a few low-key years, Mr Chow in Beverly Hills is back in vogue. While other restaurants open and close at the demand (or lack thereof) of their celebrity patrons, Mr Chow has endured.
At his offices, around the corner from the LA restaurant, the man himself considers why. Chow,
in his signature black-rimmed glasses and casually dressed in denim jeans, a black T-shirt, black shoes and a red wristband that screams 'confidence' sinks into a white leather sofa and agrees that after a fairly quiet time on the restaurant front, things are finally heating up again.
Chow is poised to almost double his portfolio in the next couple of years. In a few months, he will oversee the opening of a new venue in New York's hip Tribeca district, in a space now being demolished and rebuilt to suit his purposes. By 2007, there will be a Mr Chow at the terminally trendy Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas, in a new tower being built to contain lavish suites and condominiums that have already attracted buyers in the league of actor Jim Carrey and Claudia Schiffer. Also slated for a 2007 opening is a Mr Chow at the new W hotel in Miami's South Beach.
'In the past 10 years, there have been ups and downs,' says Chow, alluding to plans that didn't quite materialise. 'It's as with everything in life. You plant seeds, you spend time nurturing them, sometimes you struggle with them, sometimes they bloom. Things cannot be the same every year.'
That Zen outlook is reflected in the way Chow conducts his life and the space he occupies at any given moment. Given that he likes to design and build those spaces from scratch - he was trained in architecture - a visitor to his headquarters might expect to encounter a scene of controlled chaos, Chow multitasking at the centre of it all. Instead, his black-and-white office, one of several small rooms on the top floor of a quaint old building off Rodeo Drive, is an oasis of calm. On his desk are neatly stacked papers and a large glass vase containing pebbles and fresh flowers. But all is not as it seems.
