On February 22, 1981, an 18-year-old Josiah Li arrived in Canberra to begin a law degree at the Australian National University. It was one of those late summer days, close to 35 degrees. The dry summer conditions a long way from the subtropical humidity of Hong Kong where he had grown up.
He'd just finished unpacking his room in John XXIII College and it was time to head down to the dining room for an early 5pm dinner.
"And there was something on the menu I had never seen before. I thought it was a cooking description but it was actually the name of the dish," he recalls.
"Lamb's fry and bacon. I gave it a try just to taste it. Oh my god, that was an experience. I couldn't finish it."
So he walked into the city. There wasn't much around, apart from Monaro Mall. Everything east of Bunda Street was a carpark, expanses of sand and gravel.
"I eventually stumbled into Garema Place and found a milk bar, I didn't know what a milk bar was. I thought they just sold milk. It was called the Safari Room and this old Greek fellow ran it, one of the original coffee shops of Canberra," Li recalls.
"I ended up working there for four months selling milkshakes and toasted cheese fingers."
It was an inconspicuous start in the food game for Li who is this year celebrating 30 years of the Chairman Group.
As the co-owner of some of the city's leading restaurants over the years, Li is too humble to say he's helped shape the industry in the nation's capital.
He was still at university when he and good friend Danny Yip opened Window on the Orient in Belconnen's Swanson Plaza.
"Chinese restaurants back then were all red with dragons and prawn toasts and spring rolls. We decided to change things up," he says.
"We used sea green colours for the decor, we had plates custom-made in Taiwan, the waiters wore tuxedos. It was so over-the-top but people loved it.
"I remember some of the older restaurateurs in town going, 'Who are these young guys coming in to stir up the industry'."
And stir it up they did.
Over the next 30 years they opened China Tea Club in North Lyneham (1987), bringing luxury Chinese to Canberra, then the fun street food-style diner Madam Yip (Dickson, 1990).
Chairman and Yip opened in 1992, originally on Bunda Street, City, before it moved to its current location in Barton in 2016, then Rimbraud and News Cafe in Sydney (1998), Cape Cod (Deakin, 2004) and Lanterne Rooms (2008, before it moved to Campbell in 2019).
Then it was Phat Duck takeaway (2005, in the Petrie Plaza pavilion where The Fish Shack is now), Malamay (Barton, 2012), Chairman Hong Kong (2012), Lilotang (Barton, 2014), Cicada Bar and Mu Omakase (Constitution Place, City, 2021).
There was also a wine distribution business and in 1999 Li started running Blue Seas seafood distribution, supplying 90 per cent of Canberra's restaurants.
In 2023 the Chairman Group's stable is quality, not quantity; just Mu Omakase, Cicada Bar, Lanterne Rooms and the flagship venue Chairman and Yip.
We're dining there sampling dishes Li has on the celebratory 30-year menu. He's sharply dressed in a black polo knit and cream linen blazer, laughing regularly with his young staff, calling himself the "godfather".
There's no doubting he's the boss, but there's a gentleness to his demeanour as he talks about his family, growing up in Hong Kong, the three French bulldogs he bought during COVID, flicking through photos on his phone to share their latest exploits.
He doesn't call himself a businessman.
"When I travel I write 'waiter' on the incoming passenger documents," he says.
"I do get some funny looks when I go through customs and they notice I might have travelled overseas five or six times a year, but after all these years I still enjoy serving people."
The first dish served is a congee, a rice broth with apricot kernel, spanner crab and semi-dried daikon. He wants to tell me all about it.
"This dish is a childhood memory for me; we had congee all the time. When I first entered the industry people said, 'Don't serve congee, Australians only eat congee when they're in the hospital'. But this one was always well-received."
Three different types of rice are used, almond kernels provide texture, the daikon is fermented for half a day and the broth is pale and full of flavour.
He's always been one for details. He soon realised law wasn't for him and he switched to economics. He was also studying textiles and weaving and glass art at the ANU School of Art. Before his first restaurant he opened a fashion store called After Mao for a short while.
His family in Hong Kong were third generation in the textile industry and he was expected to return home to take over the business. When he opened Window on the Orient his father didn't speak to him for five years.
"When he turned 70 I remember my mother telling me that my father had finally admitted he should have supported me more, that he realised how hard we worked," Li says.
"They came to Hong Kong from China after the war and he worked very hard."
Two years into operating China Tea Club, he finished his studies. He was working full-time at the restaurant, cleaning floors, washing dishes, doing it all.
"We finished service at 11.30pm and then go into the kitchen and wash up 50 tubs of plates and get up and do it all again. I think we had one day off in five years."
He still loves to work a service shift.
"I love to watch people, I try to work out what they're feeling, it makes me happy," he says.
He prefers to use the word "happy" rather than saying he's "proud". It's not about achievements.
"My achievements are nothing. I didn't help to change the world. I'm just living like a normal human being and my focus is on food," he explains.
There's a Chinese word he uses often - "chuancheng". Roughly translated it means to pass on, to impart and receive.
He is grateful for what Canberra has given him.
"Canberra people have been very kind to me. I came here as a migrant and I couldn't even pronounce Canberra properly. I am very thankful," he says.
Nothing brings him more joy now than finding chuancheng in his own life, teaching and learning from his young staff, learning still from 78-year-old chef Suen Koon Wei, who's still in the kitchen a couple of hours a day, part of the Chairman story since the earliest days.
"It's about taking what we do here at Chairman and learning from each other, passing on the traditions, of food, of our own short history, finding a way to retell the story," he says.
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