Restaurant Rebirth

How do you rejuvinate a seaside restaurant?

This is the question that Ooh La La Restaurant / Bar owner Adrienne Ng and her new team have been mulling over at Pui O Beach on Lantau. It's a great destination in almost every way: sun, surf, sand, romance, beachside cocktails. But it's never been known for the food. I've been there many times, and as a former chef and restaurateur I was happy to be invited to lend a hand in the rebirth. And dammit, I missed the kitchen.

The Challenge

“Ten years ago this whole beach was a no-man’s land,” Ng says. “For the first six years I never saw the landlord, and the only thing it sold was $10 Pot Noodles. After years of running camps for kids and a team building program at the campground beside it, I finally tracked down the landlord and proposed a restaurant.” In many ways, Ooh La La could be a dream restaurant. Ideally located right on Pui O beach and the only restaurant for miles, the sea breeze drifts through the open-air dining room and across the large terrace. It has served everything from a scattering of diners to heaving parties of hundreds. But Ng was busy with her camps and team building and had little time to manage the restaurant. Anyway, by her own admission she is not a restaurateur. She knew she needed help if Ooh La La would ever be known as a destination dining spot.

The Solution

Simply put, we had to change the menu, fire up the passion in the kitchen and organize the front of the house. We decided to build a brand new grill and give ourselves a theme to work with: barbecued fresh seafood, chicken and steaks.

The Work Stations

From what I observed there were no work stations. Each cook flailed about trying to cover as much ground as possible, like hamsters on a spinning wheel. “Where’s the olive oil, salt and pepper?” I asked sous chef Kim Rai at one point. “There’s just one,” he answered. It was clear they were in desperate need of olive oil, rock salt and cracked pepper at every station, and to figure out what each station actually did. Oh, and we banned the microwave for regular service – never again would diners hear “ping.”

The Players

Since it opened in 2004, there has been a revolving door of staff through the kitchen, but Ng finally hired a professional chef in the form of Stewart Rai. Also on board were new general manager Dave Wilson from Australia, who has years of event experience, and for the corporate events (and grill building) Mike Miller. Restaurant manager Sharon Hoo was newly empowered to make changes such as painting and updating the bar and drinks menu. So now we had a proper crew and a decent kitchen, but that was just the start.

Stage 1: Identify Changes

I travel to Lantau for an intensive 48 hours of restaurant rescue. On the day I arrive the staff are all wearing different outfits so I had no idea who to talk to for seating or ordering. There was no maitre d’ or identifiable manager and seating was basically “whoever shows up,” which would often lead to mass seatings of huge unannounced groups, causing chaos in the kitchen. Speaking of the kitchen, the first change was to introduce a regular schedule for cleaning the ovens, freezers and other equipment – I remember from my days as a chef that without a regular routine drilled into their heads, their very bones, kitchen staff are a lot more apt to hoist a beer after work than scrub a burner.

Stage 2: Tearing Up The Menu

The old menu attempted to make something for everyone, a mishmash of Asian and Western choices, none of which were particularly inventive, fun, or tasty. Or fresh. Chef Stewart had inherited a menu of dishes he didn’t create or necessarily have the skill or passion to make, and this had to change immediately. And the menu design was bombastic, stuck in the 1960s replete with flowers and a weathered yellow hue. Out. The bar menu was cute but out of touch with the current century, and two new additions would bring it up to par and stick with the theme of everything fresh: Sangria, packed with fruit, and mojitos, with yummy fresh limes and zesty mint from the market. Refreshing, fun, playful, and not too hard to prepare once I taught Tarzan (yes, really) the bartender a few times.

The Food

I tried a selection from the old menu. Instead of marinating the chicken, beef or seafood the kitchen was slapping on sauces after the cooking process was done – maybe old-skool Chinese but it had to change if Ooh La La was going to establish a reputation as a decent grill. The first thing I did was to show the crew how to marinate meat, so the flavor would permeate the flesh all the way through, rather than come from some gooey sauce. This was an eye-opener for some of the kitchen staff, an introduction to the world of more advanced cooking than simply throwing something into a pan, oven or that horrible microwave. (Also on my kill list was the deep fryer: the only thing that should be used for, I told the staff, was an order of French fries.)

Stage 3: The Big Purge

We had to make it Stewart’s menu, his triumph. I had to use tough love. First things first: dispose of the microwave. Next: eliminate anything frozen or pre-packaged or pre-made. This was quite a task, as most food was essentially reheated or warmed up. Stewart had to be a cook, not a heater of food. We threw away the frozen food, one freezer at a time, and developed some easy, made-to-order dishes: fresh salsa, fresh burgers, fresh chicken wings, fresh salads.

Step 4: Fresh Start – A Trip to the Wet Market

With the freezers empty, it was time to stock up on fresh food. What a revelation. There’s a market on Lantau? Actually, there's a good one, the Mui Wo Market, packed with fresh fish and produce, much of it local. We also made a trip to the wet market in Sheung Wan where we found all kinds of goodies, such as beetroot for Dave’s famous Aussie burger, fragrant New Zealand mint for the mojitos, fresh catch of the day and Italian tomatoes for the salsa.

Step 5: New Dishes

After experimenting with several dishes, and discarding a few that were less successful, we cut the menu down to a dozen or so dishes that are based on grilling or simply served raw. Rainbow trout stuffed with coriander and tomato, barbecued ribs marinated in homemade sauce, grilled calamari, Australian Wagyu rib eye steak, half chicken with barbecue sauce and catch of the day. Simple but delicious. Once those dishes are perfect every time, the menu will slowly expand.

One Week Later

I call and tell the person who answers the phone I have heard there’s a new menu. To my delight, she says yes – and in the background I can hear Ng coaching the cooks on how everything on the plate must be fresh, to throw away anything canned or frozen.

I stop by unannounced on a Sunday evening and find Stewart busily cleaning and defrosting one of the freezers on his new regular cleaning schedule. Each work station has its own rock salt, cracked pepper and extra virgin olive oil. The aroma of sizzling seafood from the new grill lingers in the air as I check out the simplified menu. “A few weeks ago, the food was being rated three or four out of 10 by the guests,” Wilson said. “Now it’s seven and eight.”

The staff? All the same uniform, happy and seemingly full of pride. The greeting? Big Dave at the door with a floor plan in hand. And the grill? “This big grill on the terrace is mostly for banquets, but we plan a smaller, three-burner version soon for the regular kitchen,” Miller says. I talk to Ng about running this article and she’s a little nervous. “I just want to serve good food in a great atmosphere by the sea,” she says.

You now have a license to grill.