Private kitchens, public restaurants

Tian Shu is both the chef and boss of his private kitchen in Beijing. [Photo by Feng Yongbin/China Daily]

It's all about Home cooking and childhood memories

Actor Tian Shu's life was at its lowest ebb in 2011 when he quarrelled with his agent and ended their professional relationship. As a hardworking, but relatively obscure thespian, Tian found himself in a slump, so he decided to escape by going on a road trip he called "Goodbye and Hello".

The journey gave Tian time to think: "Being an actor is so tough. I kept asking myself: 'What else do I have?' I don't have other special skills, except my love of cooking. So the idea of running a private kitchen (a restaurant located in a residential building and operated by the homeowner) suddenly popped into my mind during the trip."

So, a week after returning from his trip, Shu started his new venture in his 85-square-meter apartment.

Three years later, Tian Shu's Kitchen is one of the most popular private kitchens in Beijing. Like many other operators of this type of establishment, Tian is both the chef and the boss. But unlike most of his peers, he doesn't rely on the venture to earn a living because he returned to acting and now combines the two activities.

At first, Tian invited friends to eat at his private kitchen for free. However, word soon got around and friends of friends began to frequent the small dining space, and within a month of opening he had his first official customer - a man who had discovered the venue via comments Tian's friends had posted on Weibo, China's Twitter-like social network.

"I don't advertise. It's all by word-of-mouth," he said.

The 27-year-old part-time chef doesn't even bother to calculate how much he makes from running the kitchen, because he regards the venture as a hobby, and when he signs up to act in a movie he closes it temporarily.

However, Tian's culinary sideline has taken flight quicker than his acting career. During our conversation, he answered four calls, but had to reluctantly refuse four bookings because he had no seats available.

"I have to turn down potential diners every day because the kitchen only has room for three reservations a night. I don't pursue the so-called seat-turnover rate or profit maximization," he says. "I have the numbers of about 1,000 customers stored in my cellphone. This wealth of contacts is really important for me."

He also revealed his secret for attracting costumers: treat others the way you would like to be treated yourself.

"For example, I like to bring my own alcohol when dinning out, so I encourage my customers to bring their own bottles when they come to my place," he says.

Tian has just one assistant, a relative from Hebei province, so he cooks and serves all the dishes himself. "To make my guests feel at home, I like to bring the dishes to them in person."

In addition to the satisfaction he gains from his interest in all things culinary, Tian's love of meeting new people and sharing gastronomic delights with them motivates him to carry on. He has also become good friends with a number of his customers and has even played matchmaker for some of them. "I introduced a girl, one of my diners, to my best friend. And they got married," he says with a grin.

"There was a very elderly guy who came and said he really missed the green onion pancakes from his hometown in Shandong province, so I cooked five of them for him."

Tian is very strict in the selection of ingredients, even to the point of pressing his cooking oil from peanuts himself because he believes it adds more flavor to the dishes, and the eggs used in his kitchen are collected from farms in the countryside near his hometown in Hebei province.

He says that many people's tastes are developed through memories from childhood, and sometimes, a warm home-style dinner can exceed any lavish banquet. Although Tian has never received professional training, his palate and acute sense of smell are dervived from his childhood days.

He still remembers the first dish he cooked at primary school - stir-fried Chinese cabbage. "My mother passed away when I was 7. After that I had several step-mothers (his father remarried a number of times), but unfortunately, they didn't cook meals for me. So I have cooked for myself since primary school."

Tian's favorite dish is Braised String Beans with Noodles, just like his late mother used to cook for him.

"Every time she cooked that dish, the whole house became infused with the scent of oil and noodles, and released a beautiful aroma into the steaming hot air. That scene is still imprinted in my mind. And that's my favorite memory of my mother, full of warmth."

Tian is now planning to open a dumpling restaurant because he senses that there is a market for a new dumpling restaurant in Beijing. "I believe that if people feel like eating dumplings, they will first think of those made by their families. There are no really impressive dumpling restaurants out there."

"In my family, when we have good news, we eat dumplings. It can be a festival, a birthday, a welcoming or a farewell party, or any other meaningful date. There is usually the feeling that eating dumplings means being happy. So I'm going to create a dumpling restaurant that will impress people not only with the great tastes, but also with the warm, happy atmosphere."

As for his private kitchen, he has decided to cut the number of tables from three to one, and make the experience unique. "When running a private kitchen, it's better to go deep, then wide," he said.