As easy as ABC

When Alan Wong arrived in Beijing in 2000 he was a 24-year-old intern at a property company looking to spend a year on the mainland before returning to his native California to study law. Nine years later, Wong is a successful restaurateur and leads a burgeoning pack of American-born Chinese (ABCs) who are shaking up the capital's dining scene.

Stepping out from behind the sushi bar of his latest outlet, the second branch of his popular Japanese-themed restaurant Hatsune, Wong has every reason to be content. He owns or is a partner in eight restaurants in Beijing and Shanghai, with a ninth set to open next month.

He says the secret of his success is simple. 'My business is not really like a business. It's just what I do - it's who I am. I don't consider it work - it's just part of my personality. The restaurants are my hobby and my staff are like my kids. Every aspect of my life has to do with the restaurants,' says Wong.

It didn't hurt that the property company he interned at was owned by his multimillionaire father, who bankrolled Wong's first restaurant.

Even so, in a city where diners are notoriously fickle and restaurants open and close on a weekly basis, he has succeeded where many have failed. In part, that's because Hatsune was the first California-style Japanese restaurant in Beijing. More importantly, though, Wong aimed his restaurants at westerners, just as more and more of them were flooding into Beijing.

'I can't target the Chinese because I'm not Chinese. I don't consider myself Chinese - I'm an American, a foreigner,' he says. 'However, I always thought that if you open a restaurant targeting foreigners, then if it's successful the locals will come out of curiosity.'