Kylie Kwong - Wok's Cooking

It might look like an empire now—television show, books, celebrity—but Kylie Kwong’s career is still about the business basics of providing a good product and good service.

When Kylie Kwong thought of her future, being a chef and restaurant owner was never part of her grand plan. Sure, she knew how to cook—she was always helping out in the kitchen at home—but she never thought about it as a career choice.

"When you’re Chinese and you grow up in a Chinese household, cooking’s just a part of your life," she says. Instead, Kwong was convinced she was destined to do something arty, so after finishing school she decided on a graphic design degree.

Working in advertising for a few years was long enough for Kwong to realise it wasn’t something she was particularly good at. The next few years were spent trying her luck at furniture restoration and a bit more graphic design work, before Kwong got a job with a caterer. It was only two days a week but, in lightning bolt style, she found her passion. "I just loved shopping for food and preparing it. And it was like all the lessons I learnt when I was growing up with my mum came tumbling down and suddenly made sense to me."

Working her way through cafÈs and delicatessens, she got her first really good job at 26, working for Neil Perry at Sydney’s Rockpool. While learning about working with good quality food in a good quality restaurant, she found it tough starting from the bottom with the 16-year-old apprentices after being in the workforce for so many years. Ironically, Kwong attributes her ‘advanced’ age to helping her work her way up to senior chef in the two years she was there. "Because I was a bit older and because I really wanted to be there, I learnt a bit quicker," she explains.

After a stint cooking Italian food, Kwong was lured back by Perry to be head chef of his new restaurant, Wockpool. Then, at 29, a stressed and burnt-out Kwong got a job with Bill Granger and was head chef at bills and bills 2. "I had never met Bill before and we became great mates and I worked with him for a year and a half."

Friendship turned to partnership when the pair opened billy kwong together. Eight months later, Kwong realised she was ready to take on the restaurant herself and bought Granger out. That was about four-and-a-half years ago and she has been the sole owner since.

Kitchen Cred

Even in the middle of the day, walking into the billy kwong there’s no mistaking it is a busy restaurant. On tables is the day’s fresh produce and there’s the spicy aroma from the broth Kwong is stirring on the stove. Maintaining the freshness of the produce is the most important operational consideration in running her restaurant. "I learnt all of these lessons from Neil [Perry], and once you’ve had the best you can’t get it out of your system."

Part of keeping the business evolving and standing out from the other eight or so modern Asian restaurants on the same street, Kwong is always looking for ways to improve her food, to stay a step ahead. "It always comes back to the quality of everything."

So how does she maintain quality of produce? "We have very good relationships with our suppliers, that’s the number one thing … we speak to them every day on the phone," she says. "They get to know what your standard is, what you like and don‘t like."

Kwong also relies on them to ensure she has the best food available. "They might say ‘we’re not going to give you the such and such beef today because it’s not very good at the moment but try this’."

Being able to ‘go with the flow’, Kwong can always offer her customers the best product available without sacrificing the quality of the food she produces simply to ensure it is on the menu. "We work the menu around the produce."