Chef Louis Lin has a question he asks his kitchen staff as they’re pitching a dish for the menu: What’s the memory that inspired you? Was it a typical order at your family’s neighborhood bar and grill? A favorite family meal from your first restaurant job? A date night dinner? A midnight snack?
“The whole point of the restaurant, the whole point of what we’re doing is that we’re showing what we’re influenced by,” Lin says, sitting at a table in a corner of the yet-to-open restaurant Xiao Ye, which translates to “midnight snack” in Mandarin. “We’re showing who we are as cooks and creators in general, but also
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