[Chef's Table] Ever Been to Xibo? Atina Kuo Tells us Her Story...

Most of us play it safe with our careers. We keep our comfy corporate jobs and climb that ladder to middle management. We plateau there and then bide our time until retirement. Not Atina Kuo. She left a promising job at a major hotel brand and dove headfirst into an industry with a staggering failure rate. That was 16 years ago, and her first restaurant, Xibo, still stands strong. Do you remember the first time you ever tried Xinjiang food? It was probably in Xibo. Last year, she expanded her oeuvre with Cilan, a spiffy little riverside outfit that explores the regional cuisines of China and reimagines them with Western recipes. That's always a risky proposition, but, once again, she has proven that risk pays off. We caught up with Atina to learn how she made a small minority culture from Northwest China a household name in Shanghai.

CNS: How did it all start?

I used to work for Marriott. I was on the operations team. Back then, I was always organizing dinners for my friends. I always proudly presented my Xinjiang food. I eventually started realizing that there wasn't a more upmarket option for Xinjiang cuisine in this city. Back then, if you went to a Xinjiang restaurant, you were lucky if they kept their beer cold. The wine selection was always bad. The lighting was bright, and it came from fluorescent tubes. Usually, by 9 o'clock, they were taking their last order.

So, I started doing some informal market research. I would ask all my friends at these dinners, "Do you like Xinjiang food?" The answer was always "Yes." My follow-up question was always, "If I opened a Xinjiang restaurant with a nicer décor and a better menu, and I charged 15 percent, maybe 20 percent more, would you go?" The answer was always "Yes." That got my gears turning. So, in 2009, I quit my job and got started.

CNS: Were you scared?

I was definitely scared. I mean, what if I failed? But a good friend told me, "If you fail, you lose money. If you lose money, you go back to the corporate world and make it back in a few years. But if you take this chance, you'll gain a lot of experience that you will never get in a corporate job." This made a lot of sense to me because, after all, money is not everything.

CNS: What made you choose the name Xibo?

I worked on different names for months. None of them had anything to do with Xibo. Then I just decided, why not just call it Xibo? It's my people. It's my story, my food. It's a brand language that I can speak fluently because it's part of who I am.

CNS: Tell us a little about the Sibo (or xibo in pinyin) people.

The Sibo are a very small minority from Xinjiang, but we are originally from the northeast of China. We migrated to Xinjiang during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912).

CNS: Is there any connection to the Manchu people?

So, what I've heard is we have a very similar language with the Manchu. But, as you know, not so many people speak the Manchu language anymore. So, I don't know how close we are. But one time my mom visited the Forbidden City, and she was able to read a lot of the inscriptions in Manchu. So, I think there are some similarities.

CNS: So, you have the name and the concept. What happens next?

We started working on the design and finding the location. It took half a year to find that first location on Changshu Rd. And it took me another half year to open. I signed the lease in September 2009. Then I realized that there were no gas fittings for the stoves. The guy who ran the property management office installed a fake gas line. He just took the money and ran.

So, it took us another couple of months to apply for the new gas line. And we had some residential neighbors behind us who didn't want anyone to dig up the ground to put a gas line in. It was a lot of drama. Then after about three months, we were finally able to get our stoves to work and start tasting the food. And eventually, we started opening to the public. Another English media put out a piece on us and things just blew up. So many foreigners came. We weren't ready for that level of business.

The kitchen got overwhelmed. Sometimes food would take too long to get to the table if it got there at all. I remember one table. It took an hour and a half for their food to arrive. I remember this one guy's face to this day. He was so angry throughout the entire meal. I had to comp the entire meal, of course, and it was a huge party. I knew they would never come back again. After that, I immediately found someone else to manage the kitchen.

CNS: Most people think of Uyghur food when they think of Xinjiang cuisine. How is the Sibo cuisine different?

A Sibonese menu will never be as big as a Uyghur menu. We do have a lot of similar recipes. I don't know what's originally from our people or what we adopted after migrating to Xinjiang. One dish that is unique to us is this fluffy bread we call far e wen. Breakfast is unique too. We eat that with a lot of side dishes, small pickles or salad or jam or milk tea. In the winter, we do a lot of stews. We use a lot of dried beans.

CNS: How did you learn how to cook?

I've been able to cook since I was nine or 10 years old. I actually cooked dinner for my 10th birthday party. It was something very simple – celery with meat and some sliced potato and some veggies, boiled lamb, and some rice. No one taught me. I just learned from watching my mom

CNS: What made you want to branch out from doing just Sibo cuisine to the food you're doing at Cilan?

I just felt the need for more room to grow after doing Xinjiang cuisine for so long. It was time to take the next step. I decided that step would be lots of provinces outside of Xinjiang, like Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, Gansu, and Inner Mongolia.

CNS: Why the name Cilan?

"Cilan" is the Uyghur word for "red date." This restaurant has nothing to do with Xinjiang or Xinjiang food, but I still wanted a name that speaks to where I come from.

CNS: What's your favorite part about this business?

I like to feed people. I like to see people's smiling faces. I think that's also something about people from Xinjiang. We're very good at feeding people. In Xinjiang, you will never go to a person's house and not be welcomed with a full table of food. I think I grew up in that kind of environment and family. When anything happened, good or bad, we were always like, "Let's go eat."

CNS: What's your definition of success?

Doing something meaningful. I think I'm doing something meaningful now because if I don't do a Sibo restaurant, my minority might be gone in 50 or 100 years without a lot of people knowing who we were. That's part of the reason. But I also think it's meaningful to work with people you respect and provide employment for others. It's a way of giving back to society. It's not about how much money you make. It's about what you learn, how you grow.

If you go

Xibo (Original Branch)

Opening hours: 11:30am-2pm,5pm-10:30pm

Tel: 5403-8330

Address: 3/F, 83 Changshu Rd, near Julu Rd

Average price per person: 104 yuan

Cilan

Opening hours: 11:30am-2pm,5:30pm-10pm

Tel: 3368-2970

Address: No. 203, Bldg 6, Gate M, 2266 Longteng Ave

Average price per person:270 yuan