Chris Cheung

Photo: courtesy of Vue

Chris Cheung is one busy chef. Not only is he helming the stoves at the East Village’s China 1, he recently opened Vue atop Park Slope’s Hotel Le Bleu, and he’s consulting on an Asian fusion project in Sheepshead Bay called Opium. Born in Chinatown, and bred in Brooklyn, Cheung now brings his experience as a vet of Nobu, Jean Georges and pre–Graydon Carter Monkey Bar to two boroughs. Cheung stopped multitasking for a few moments to catch up with us.

Zagat Buzz: Are there any special challenges in opening a restaurant within a hotel?

Chris Cheung: Yes, but I had experienced some of the same challenges when I was at Monkey Bar, which is in the Hotel Elysée. You are not the same entity but you have to behave like you are, even though, like two people living in the same house, you might not always get along. The hardest thing from the restaurant’s point of view is room service. At a regular restaurant, this is not something that is a normal part of your day. So you have to look at more than the guests you are serving in the dining room. Another thing is I have to do breakfast, and that’s not something you have in mind when you’re just starting a restaurant. So that means a whole different menu and getting workers into the restaurant at 5 or 6 AM.

ZB: Which dish on Vue’s menu do you feel reflects your background most?

CC: Vue’s menu is very personal to me. It’s New American cuisine, and New York, especially Brooklyn, happens to be a melting pot of cultures. So I reflect that in dishes like the baby back ribs, which are cooked Southeast Asian style, but I pair it with buttered corn and mac and cheese seasoned with Maytag blue. Or there are also the “gold coins,” which are short-rib-stuffed wontons folded so they look like old Chinese coins. And I pair them with a sabayon made with truffle oil and sriracha, which go beautifully together.

ZB: I noticed that you have an “everything” crusted strip steak on the menu. What constitutes “everything?”

CC: That’s where my being a New Yorker comes in. It’s inspired by the “everything” bagel. So when I decided to crust my steak I took everything that was on an “everything” bagel – fried garlic, fried onions, salt, poppy seeds and sesame seeds – and crusted the steak with it.

ZB: Have you spent some time in China recently?

CC: Yes, last year, after I left Monkey Bar, I went to Shanghai, where I have some family. I went into the little coastal archipelago there right off the coast and cooked the welcoming banquets in these little back farming villages. I was cooking in these little outhouses with no lighting fixtures, on wood-fired woks, and if we wanted to eat a chicken I would have to go outside to the courtyard to get one, kill it, pluck it and then cook it. To be exposed to that sort of thing was truly awesome.

ZB: What was the most important thing you learned there?

CC: I gained an appreciation of China itself, foodwise. For example, things that motivate us in New York, like being sustainable, and seasonal – we have no words for that in China because it is a way of life. The whole village is sustainable. Everything is used... and I mean everything. “Sustainable” in America is not even close to what “sustainable” is in China.

ZB: What do you think are New Yorkers’ biggest misconceptions of Chinese cuisine?

CC: Well, here’s an example – I was having a birthday party for my 5-year-old and we invited his classmates from school. And one of the moms came up to me and said, “I hear you’re a chef!” She sounded very excited, and we were talking about the business for a while. Then she asked, “What kind of food do you cook?” When I told her Chinese, her face fell. I knew she had some sort of picture in her head of a guy with a cigarette in his mouth standing over a wok cooking greasy egg rolls. I thought right then, I have to do something to get this picture out Americans’ heads. The truth is Chinese cuisine is right up there with any of the finest cuisines in the world. The Chinese food scene here is evolving but not as quickly as I would like it. I’m trying my best to move that along.

ZB: Have you been to Graydon Carter’s Monkey Bar yet?

CC: Well, I’m certainly not a celebrity, so I’m definitely not on the A-list to get into that place! But I’m 100% behind the success of Monkey Bar, even though it’s another company and another restaurateur from my time there, because my name has been attached to it over the last couple of years. So the better success for them, the better it looks for me.

Vue: 370 Fourth Ave., Brooklyn; 718-625-2177

– Kathleen Squires