Visionary Cuisine: Owner Alan Wong Talks About the Future of Hatsune

Like a seasoned sushi chef readying a California roll, Alan Wong just keeps adding one tantalizing layer after another to every facet of Hatsune. Think of him as not only a foodie or a mere restaurateur, but also a visionary that keeps his gaze lofty and wide-ranging.

When asked about that vision, he answers with a question: “Have you ever watched the documentary Chef’s Table?” Wong, who owns the highly popular Hatsune sushi chain, says recently while nibbling on some sashimi at his restaurant’s Sanlitun branch. The soft-spoken and smiley Californian’s eyes widen with excitement as he goes on to describe the restaurateurs that are in that documentary series, and how they are inspiring his work today: “It’s an amazing show that really captures how those chefs have evolved over time. And like them we have also evolved subtly.”

Such nuanced alterations have been made to the restaurant’s rice and soy sauce over the years, so that their textures and flavors have a subtle balance. And now, like a director who has set up the low-key scenes before revving up the movie’s action with a plot twist, Wong is ready to unleash some culinary special effects.

That process starts with a special new dish that will debut on Hatsune’s menu each month, before being replaced by something new the following month. After six months – and a few tweaks, based on customer feedback – those dishes will become permanent fixtures of the Hatsune repertoire. Among those menu items will be an exotic kinki fish (pictured at top), uni with dashi jelly and torched ika, roasted king crab legs, and grilled iberico pork.

His muses for those dishes have varied. Inspiration struck during one visit to Sureño, the beloved Italian restaurant in the Opposite House, after he ordered a flavorful sous vide chicken dish. “They’ve done some amazing things with their menu lately,” Wong, an obvious food enthusiast, says of the Sureño chicken dish, adding: “It was so good that it made me want to try a flame grilled chicken dish here at Hatsune. I wouldn’t sous vide it, obviously, but I want it to be charred and have that flame-kissed flavor.” That idea grew into a fun-filled afternoon with Wong’s pal Kin Hong, the beloved chef at the ever-popular Taco Bar. Wong says: “We love playing around with kitchen toys. He gave me a char broiler recently, and we played around with it for this chicken dish I’m working on, but we also use it for vegetables and fish and everything.”

Wong doesn’t just enjoy taking inspiration from, and embarking on collaborations with his fellow local F&B cohorts – he sees it as a necessity. That’s because he knows so many other restaurant owners who develop their ideas less scrupulously.

“Our restaurant is pretty heavily copied all over China. So I’m getting into some more interesting cuisine, creating signature dishes every month that are more complex to do, and very hard to copy,” he says of that challenging conundrum, one that Hatsune’s staff describe as the restaurant being “often imitated, but never replicated.” Wong feels that “the most annoying part is when some of my staff get poached because they’re Hatsune chefs. People with money will give them huge offers, and they just get dollar signs in their eyes. But after they go, the owner of the restaurant that poached them usually figures out before long that they’re limited by their time in Hatsune, especially now that I'm moving on and making something new every six months.”

That sentiment isn’t so much a sign of restlessness as voracious hunger – his longing for innovation remaining as strong as his craving for sushi. “I think a lot of these people that are very business focused don’t know how to strongly critique their brand when it’s going well. I do it very well,” he says, of those more conventional competitors, adding that many of them have a mentality of: “‘If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.’ But longevity depends on changing.”

His peckishness for evolution is encapsulated in one of those forthcoming monthly dishes.

“I’m working with a supplier that provides us with foie gras terrine,” he says with another wide grin, before justifying his enthusiasm for the upcoming menu item: “It’s a little bit sweet when you use it in sushi rolls, and it’s very unique. We tried creating it ourselves, and it’s pretty good, but I think a professional foie gras supplier can do an even better job."

Wong sums those efforts up thusly: “It’s about going back to our roots – we’re born and bred in Californian sushi, so I want to revamp the sushi menu a bit, and do more interesting things, like adding this terrine. So we’re working on some entirely new dishes, and putting some new ingredients in older dishes. It’s all about going forward, but also staying rooted.”

Hungry for more? Follow Hatsune on WeChat at Hatsune_Sushi

Photos: Hatsune, Zeus