S1E7 - Kylie Kwong & Exploring Identity

I've always been a one restaurant person. I've always wanted to go deeper rather than broader. I didn't want to spend my life in, you know, planes going down to Billy Kwong Melbourne and Billy Kwong Brisbane or whatever. Like it had absolutely no interest in me. That's unbelievable in these days that you didn't have FOMO or didn't dream of excessive wealth or whatever, you know. You're always on an inner journey rather than some outward journey. Hi, I'm Melina Shannon-DiPietro, the executive director of MAD. This is our new podcast MAD Talks. For our first season, our founder, René Redzepi, who is also the chef and owner of Restaurant Noma, sits down each week with an iconic speaker from our signature event, MAD Symposium, to talk about food, creativity and the future we hope to build. In this episode, René sits down with Kylie Kwong, the former chef and founder of Sydney's legendary Billy Kwong, to talk about building a life around food, serving your community and recognizing that every crisis is an opportunity waiting to happen. Kylie Kwong! How are you? Yeah, all right, mate. That was my worst and best Australian accent. It was really bad. Do you wear glasses now? I wear glasses to read. Can you believe it? How are you? It's been seven years. Yeah, I can't believe it. Seven years. Isn't it unbelievable? But you somehow look exactly like when I met you the very first time. Well, it's very, very kind of you. Maybe it's the lighting. So how are you? What's going on over there in Australia? I've got my new role at the powerhouse, which I'm loving. It's my dream job. And, yeah, really enjoying this new chapter and not having the responsibilities of running a restaurant and a business and staff, etc. But I still get to engage with food, but, you know, on the other side of the kitchen. How are the children? Oh, they're good. I have a 17-year-old that basically she has a foot out the door. And then an 11-year-old, she just colored her hair pink. And then she also colored our dog's hair as well, the tail. And then I have a 14-year-old and she's the wild one. You know, she does Muay Thai and just is unstoppable, basically. It's actually really well. The kids are fantastic. Three incredible girls. Nadine is doing well. Copenhagen, you know, is in a fairly good place, I'd say. It's busy. But, listen, now that you mention it, it's your dream job. Why don't we start at that place? Because I was curious to know, when you started out cooking, what was the height of your dreams back then? What did you dream of? Well, I was only about five when I started cooking and I learned cooking by my mother's side. I am a third-generation Australian but 29th-generation Kwong. And so I grew up in a Cantonese household with mum and dad, my two brothers, and my Chinese grandmothers lived with us at different times as well. So that was a really incredible experience to have, you know, our elders live with us. Yeah. But mum was a beautiful home cook, a beautiful Cantonese home cook, and she still is. And I guess the difference with my mother was she never saw cooking for the family every single night of the week as a task or something that she struggled with or got bored of. She loved it. She loved it with a great passion and she still does. And she loves, she loves, and she's always loved good quality produce, beautiful, beautiful, you know, dishes. She loved teaching people, but she actually loves serving it as well. Serving it to the family or the guests was the most enjoyable part. So I learned cooking from her from the age of five. And I guess back then when I was very young, I wasn't really dreaming about, you know, what I'd be when I was going to be, you know, when I grew up. And then I finished high school and I actually wanted to be an artist. You know, at the time, a lot of us, a lot of people were doing, you know, commercial art. And I said to my parents, I'd really love to be an artist. So I went and did a graphic design degree. And, and I got into advertising and I worked in advertising for several years as a junior graphic designer. And I was actually really, really bad at it because it was too, there were too many measurements. It was too, it was too kind of like millimeter by millimeter. You know, it was before desktop publishing. So it was, I used to spend half the day in the, in the bromide room was, which was a big photography room. I used to do finished art. I used to get the hot wax all over the board. I couldn't use the rotary pens properly. I was, I was actually really bad at it. I'm much better at tossing things in the wok, you know, I'm much more, more at that kind of loose creativity. Yeah. And so I didn't last very long in advertising, but I also didn't like the culture. It was very cutthroat. It was commercial. And I wasn't, that just wasn't how I was. And at that time as well, I was, I was, you know, 19, 20, 21. And I was, you know, trying to kind of sort myself out, sorting out my sexuality and who I was in the world as you do when you're that age. So, so being in this cutthroat commercial world of advertising, you know, compared to what I was going through internally, just did not, did not mix. I needed to be in a much more kind of, I guess, well, a different environment, a much more soulful environment. And then I, I got into cooking when I was about 25 professional cooking. And I, I started working with a contract caterer because I left advertising and my parents said, well, you have, you have to learn another trade. What would you like to do? And I said, I actually don't know, but you know, I'll, I'll get a job with one of my friends who's a caterer whilst I'm thinking of, of the next thing to get into. Well, that was the turning point. I went and worked with this guy called Ian. He used to cook all of these boardroom lunches in the CBD. And the first week I worked with him, he said, you know, can you go down to the market and get, you know, all of these ingredients? Um, yeah, of course. So I went down there and loved it, loved shopping at the market, loved speaking to the producers. I felt very at home in the kitchen because I, there was a confidence. There was a natural confidence. I loved cooking with him and I loved serving, serving the people. And all of a sudden I had this kind of light bulb moment and I ran home to mum and dad and I said, I know what I want to be. I want to be a professional chef because it was this, it all came back to me, all of those lessons in that environment that I grew up with. Um, in my childhood and all through my adolescence. And of course I've never looked back. And I remember I used to, I remember the very first cookbook I bought was the, the Roux brothers patisserie. Cause, cause back then I thought, you know, the whole world was about the whole world of cooking was about mastering the art of French cuisine. Yeah. Yeah. We all did. Mum loved it because my mum and brothers loved it because I'd be going home, you know, like I'd be asking mum to buy rabbits and camembert. And I'd be spending all weekend, you know, baking these beautiful tarts and what have you. It was really, it was an amazing time. What did, what did your parents say when you said, I'm going to be a cook? Well, they loved it cause they could, I was literally, you know, leaping out of my skin. I was about 25 and they could see the passion that there was so much passion. They're more passion than I'd ever had than I'd ever had for graphic design or advertising, but there was a confidence as well. I knew how to do it. It was my, it felt like a natural space for me to be in. Um, and of course I, I, I think my mum was thrilled and very proud because she, she knew she could see that all of those years of learning and mentorship were going somewhere. And of course, what's not to love about being a cook and a chef and serving people and talking about beautiful produce and meeting providence and all of those relationships. And so I went on to do that for, for 24 to 30 years. Yeah, you did. And at that time when you were switching careers, you said you were also going through some internal things. Yeah. How was that? So, you know, at that, at that age, you know, the meaning of life and a lot of soul searching. I was in high school. I went to an all girls high school and I had this group of really close girlfriends. There were about eight of us and we're going through high school. And of course they were all going off to, you know, to their boyfriends and getting boyfriends and actually being attracted to boys. Whereas I was just not interested. I was studying. I was playing with my friends in the street. I was cooking with mum. It was just so far, foreign, that, that feeling for me. And that's when I realized I was, I was different. And that's when I started feeling quite anxious and alone because I, you know, I had no one to speak to really. Back then, all of those years ago, some 40 years ago, things were very different in terms of, you know, what is available for, for young, young queer people coming out and all of the support groups and social media and everything online. It was so different. But in a nutshell, my two brothers and I grew up disliking our father intensely because he was very, he was selfish and inaccessible. He didn't know how to be with children. And we adored our mother because she was everything to us, everything and more. So, so naturally we grow up as young adults, not being able to relate to, to our father. And so I had a lot of, I had a lot of kind of issues trying to relate to men and how to do that. And I felt scared and, and, and resentful and angry and, and confused by men. I mean, I was only, you know, I was a young person. So lots to work out, lots of things to work out. That's wild. You're going through all this at the same time. And then when did you have the, the, the courage to come out? Was that also when you changed the industry, when you went into cooking? No, that's, that's a really good question. Because when I, when I did get into advertising, my very first job, the best thing about advertising was my very first, it was a, it was a full-time job. And my boss was this gay woman, this older gay woman. And she was the first gay woman I'd met in my life. So she was about 45 and I was 18, 19. And she could see the struggle. She could, she could see the internal struggle. And she was really very, very compassionate and very wise, a very wise person. And she said to me, you know, I can see you're struggling with all of these, these, these questions that internal, this internal restlessness. I can understand the dynamic at home with your father and your mother. And she said, she said, why don't you look at doing this amazing course that she'd done? It's a, it was a personal growth course and it was called the turning point. And it was this long weekend. And she said, I think you would really benefit. And I just jumped at it because I was searching, searching for, for answers. And it was literally the turning point for me. It was a Friday night through to a Sunday. And it was the first time that I learned the incredible concept that our parents bring us up in the best way they know how. It was actually this moment where for the first time in my life, I actually opened the door to a little bit of forgiveness there. And then another huge part of that weekend, which, which marked a very big internal shift was the opportunity to release the anger and the resentment, the 19 years of that built up, you know, anger. And that was a really incredible, cathartic moment because, because we know that when we, we hold anger, it doesn't go, it doesn't kind of disappear into thin air. We need to release it somehow. Jogging, boxing, whatever it is. So long as we release it in a, in a instructive, positive way, not, not a destructive way where we're hurting other people or hurting ourselves. When you move that big black energy that is anger, then it allows space for new things to come in like compassion or forgiveness or understanding. And during that period, that's when I plucked up the courage to come out to my father. There was no way I was ever going to live half a life. I am not that person. I couldn't be the daughter. They, you know, they wanted me to be at home and then go out and, you know, have a girlfriend somewhere and have this other life. So I was very fortunate to have that advice at that age, because since then I've been able to live, live the life that I've wanted to live. I think in our industry, we probably have people that have similar stories to you in certain ways, abusive parents or whatever it could be. But it gets channeled into perhaps anger. There's more of this kind of tough, macho vibes. That's their way of dealing it. Perhaps I've even had that. And so you've all the time worked on yourself, which to me is much more daring than the opposite, which is not working on yourself. So you have guts. That's how I see you. And you're also sitting there radiating. You really are. It's just incredible. When I, when I was growing up and I could see, you know, feel and observe this dynamic with my parents, as we all do. And, you know, we're so sensitive as, as young children. We just like these little balls of feeling and emotion and we're just taking everything in. There was such a imbalance in the relationship. Like he, it was, it was dad's way or the highway. My mother, she, she was a, she's a very intelligent, strong woman. She's not just, you know, kind of like a pushover, but what she was doing in her subservience was trying to keep the peace in the household. So I'm observing this dynamic my whole life. And I can, I can distinctly remember it about the age of nine. I can see the sentence across my, you know, going through my mind's eye. When I grow up, I'm never getting married. Is the sentence I had because I, because in my immature mind, I was thinking, I don't ever want to be in a relationship like this. I, which in my mature mind was being married to a man. That was the nine year old mind. So guess what? After I came out and dad was incredible and we had this amazing, we had this incredible confrontation in my bedroom one Wednesday. I came out to him. He took, he, he didn't take it very well at all. He literally said, I want you out of the house in two days. He said, I disown you as my daughter. I don't understand. I don't understand this. I disagree with you. This is, this is not what, what your mother and I want. And he was, you know, got in a real and he said, when you leave the home, when you leave the house this Saturday, if you call the house, you can speak to your mother and your brothers, but I don't want to speak to you. He actually said that to me and it was incredibly painful. Yeah. And even though my gay friends had said, they had warned me that dad might say something like that because they had had a similar experience. Nothing prepared me for when my father said those words. I mean, you can imagine. Um, but a miracle happened after he said those terrible words and then left my room and the whole family was just falling apart. A miracle happened. He was silent for two days. He didn't eat his food for two days. I don't think any of us ate dinner for two days, which was unheard of this Chinese household. And he literally came around two days later and he came into my bedroom on the Saturday morning at about 5am and he was literally sobbing. He was sobbing like a baby. He was sobbing like I'd never seen him before. And he came into my room and I said, my, I said, dad, what's the matter? Like I've never, I'd never seen him like this. I'd only seen the kind of macho exterior. But actually the only time I saw him cry was at his mother's when his mother died. And he's like, I can't do this to you. You're my baby. You're my only daughter. I don't understand your lifestyle, darling, but I just want you to be happy. Wow. So he did this incredible 360. He let, he let go of his entire 52 years of ego. Now that to me is courage and amazingness. You're right. That's a, it's very, very touching. Very moving to hear. I think we're all getting a little teary eyed here in, in, in, in the room. That's unbelievable. Well, what actually happened in that moment was I stood up to the bully and he kind of like deflated. And then he allowed, he allowed his, what was amazing was he, he literally let go of ego, 52 years of ego. He had a very black and white view on life. He was one of, one of those very black and white. Plenty of them right now as well. It was, it was, it was, yeah. And I said, dad, you're amazing. He, I said, I can't believe it. You've just let go of those preconceived ideas that you've held onto for 52 years. And from that moment onwards, we were able to look at each other in the eye. Cause prior to that, we were never able to look at each other in the eye. Cause I felt intimidated by him. I didn't like him. I didn't respect him. He felt he could feel that from his, his child. So he was uncomfortable. He wasn't great at expressing his emotions. And so in this moment, it was a moment of absolute clarity and authenticity and total, total heart connection. And from that moment onwards, we had a great relationship up until, you know, he, he passed away at 70 from prostate cancer. So that was, that was a very liberating time, of course. I was wanting to ask you about a different identity, which is what does it mean to you to be Australian? Yeah. I mean, that's really interesting. So before I said, I'm three generations Australian and 29th generation Kwong. And back in the late 1850s, my great grandfather, Kwong Sudak, brought our family family name to Australia in the gold rush. And he was an entrepreneurial, clearly very adventurous, amazing young guy. He was about 24. And he traveled from our family ancestral village, which is this tiny little peasant style farming village, three hours south of Taishan province in Guangzhou, which is where I'm from, the original Canton. And so he must have been sitting there in his farming village one day as a 23 year old thinking, you know, there's got to be more to life. And I mean, he was just amazing. So he landed on the shores of Palmerston, which is what Darwin used to be called. And over the next 10 years, he traveled between China and Australia. And he acquired four Chinese concubines. It was back in the days of the concubines. He had four Chinese wives and together they produced 24 children, which is where I'm from. Wow. We have one of the largest Chinese family trees in Australia's immigration history. So fast forward, I was about, when was it? It was about 2005. So 20 years ago. So what's that if you grew? I was about 35. I had the opportunity to go back to the family ancestral village. And I was the first one to revisit the village in 90 years. So I actually got to go into great grandfathers, the remains of his house there and the beautiful Quang Chinese seal on the wall. I've been back several times. And every time I go back to the village, I pay my respects and do, you know, this beautiful ritual with bowing and the whole chicken and incense, et cetera. So paying my respects to the elders. And it was just so, it was just so amazing. The first day I arrived there, and of course the mobile coverage in China is incredible. You can get mobile coverage wherever you are. I rang up my father. He's back home in Sydney on the golf course. I said, Dan, where are you? Where are you? He's like, I'm playing golf. He's like, where are you? Where are you, darling? And I said, you'll never guess where I am. I'm in your great grandfather's home in Taishan province. And he couldn't believe it. And he never made it there. But when you asked me about identity, it was in that moment, I truly understood who I was and where I'd come from. So when you asked me about identity, I have a very strong sense of my Chinese identity. And very, you know, when I left that, when I returned home to Australia after that incredible trip, it was life changing. And there was a much deeper inner confidence and I felt like I belonged somewhere, a sense of belonging. I knew where I came from. So it was just this extraordinary feeling. And the Australian part, what does it feel? I mean, I'm asking you this because, as you know, my family, they're Albanians and I live in Denmark. I'm raised here, but I don't necessarily feel Danish. I grew up not with the same songs and not with the same foods and not with the same traditions. So I always wonder what it would feel like to truly feel like you belong to this place only. Do you have that with Australia? Yes, I do, because we had a very outward Australian upbringing. The Australian part was, I guess, well, when we were growing up, we were the only Asian children in our neighborhood and at our primary school for the first 13 years of my life. Now that same neighborhood and the adjoining neighborhoods are filled with Asian people. But we never, my two brothers and I never experienced racism at school because of our mother's beautiful cooking. Everybody wanted to come to our home because of Mrs. Kwong's beautiful Chinese food. And every single year from as long as I can remember, I used to nag my mother and say, can I have a birthday party? You know, I wanted to have all my friends around. And I would nag and nag and nag. And every time she used to give in and she would put on the most incredible spread. She would have fried rice, soy sauce, chicken, Uncle Jimmy's hockey and noodles, deep fried fish fillets with beautiful sweet and sour sauce and so on, as opposed to things out of the freezer or in the microwave or packets of chips and so on. So we Kwong kids were very, very popular because of mum's food. So that is another reason why I have grown up with such a positive sense around food and the way it brings people together and makes people happy. Because it does, in my experience, it has. And then you opened a restaurant. Then I opened a restaurant. Then you opened Billy Kwong in 2000, right? In 2000, right? That's right. So I opened Billy Kwong, had the light bulb moment. I want to be a professional chef. I worked with Neil Perry for six years. And that's where I, you know, got that incredible commercial restaurant grounding. And he taught me so much about, he opened my eyes up to Western cooking. I mean, when I started working with Neil, I really didn't know anything about olive oil or balsamic vinegar or good quality salt or, you know, all of the different, you know, herbs like tarragon and rosemary and basil and so on, because we only had Chinese food in our home. We lived about 45 minutes from the city. We didn't go to restaurants because, you know, we had a modest upbringing. And why would we when we have mum's beautiful food? You had better food at home. Yeah, probably. So six years with Neil. And then I left Neil because I was burnt out. The last the last restaurant I ran for Neil, I was a head chef at Wockpool and it was a 400 seater with 20, 23 people on the on the on the roster, the kitchen roster. I was the head chef and it used to take me all day to do this roster and and by the time and manage everyone. And you know what that's like. Yeah. By the time I got to service in the end, I used to be exhausted and then I'd have to do service. So I left that and then I had a month off and then I started working with Bill Granger in his beautiful Bill's cafes. So I went right back to a very small family run business and that's what really attracted me, attracted me to Bill's to ringing up Bill. I'd never met him before. And he and I had this amazing creative connection. We were a similar age. And I just I was very, very inspired by that that period when I worked with Bill, this tiny little family run business. It was so beautiful in every way, the detail, the philosophy. I was very, very inspired by that. And then together we opened Billy Kwong a year and a half later. So his first name, my surname. And he really held my hand because that was the first business I'd opened. And we all know what that's like. I mean, I didn't have a clue how to write a business proposal, how to deal with real estate agents, how to open a bank account. You know, what's petty cash, how do you do the till, all that, all that stuff. I knew how to do the food. I knew exactly what I knew exactly what concept I wanted the restaurant to be. I knew what the menu was going to be. I knew who the chefs were going to be. I knew everything kind of I knew the values and the emotional energy of the of the restaurant I wanted. But all of the kind of nuts and bolts I needed, needed his help. And he was incredible. It's incredible how few people that I speak to. I would say no one of cooks actually know anything about operating a restaurant. They, the, the, the, the, the dream is just, I just want to cook. Just give me a place where I can cook and then we'll figure things out. And then when it sort of washes over you all the burden and responsibility, you're so overwhelmed and most people don't make it. But you were there for, for almost 20 years, right? That's right. So I had the original Billy Kwong for 14 years. So after the first year of Billy Kwong, Bill and I went our separate ways. He was going on that whole international kind of journey, which was incredible. And so I had the business for another 13 years after he and I parted. And my mother helped me with the business. She used to be an accountant. So that was very handy. Both of my brothers were also in advertising. One was also a graphic designer. So he helped me with all of the menus and the, and the, and the corporate identity. And the other one was a copywriter. So he helped me with the whole kind of, you know, shaping all of that. And then of course I used to do everything else and loved it. You know, I would direct the menu. I would hire the staff. I would teach the staff, direct the whole style of the place, get the flowers on the way to work, speak to the providors, go to the market. You know, I did everything, which I loved. Hmm. Yeah. It was such a beautiful restaurant. I'll never forget. First time you step into this place, that huge flower bouquet, you know, coming from Denmark, we know nothing about Chinese food. I guess I had been to Chinese restaurants, but not understanding anything about it at all, about the different provinces and not even knowing how a restaurant should look like. And suddenly you came into this incredibly beautiful space. Um, and then the food just started pouring out and it was unlike anything I'd ever tried. But why did you close it? Yes. Well, I mean, after 19 years, so I closed Billy Kwong Potts Point in June, 2019. And looking back then, I was 49. And when I was 48, so the year before, I'd actually started to feel an internal restlessness, which was very unlike me. I always loved, I used to run to work because it was my business, my practice, my, my passion. And, and I loved it. I loved every aspect of it. And all of a sudden I started to not feel that, that, uh, that energy anymore for that, for that business. And I thought to myself, well, this is, this is not like me. And things became, things started to become a struggle. I found myself getting kind of frustrated more. I, I, I was having, you know, sleepless nights and I usually am a very good sleeper. So I was kind of tossing and turning in the middle of the night and going into this monkey mind, you know, all of the demons were coming out. And this went on for several months. And I was saying to Nell, there's something, there's something going on. There's a bit of a shift going on. And she said, yeah, I can, I can feel that. And she said to me, why don't you go and speak to Sabana? And Sabana is our incredible Buddhist mentor of about 30 years. She was the first female Zen Roshi in Australia. So the first female Zen master. She, um, married us. So she's a Buddhist, um, marriage celebrant. She has been my mentor and also psychotherapist. She, she's just this incredible person in my, a very wise person in my life. Nell said, go and speak to Sabana. And I said, good. I said to Sabana, is this what a midlife crisis feels like or looks like? And she said, hang on a minute. From the, from this moment, we're not going to use that C word anymore. We're going to change that last word to opportunity. She said, Kylie, you've done the restaurant. You've done it for 19 years. You're 48. You've been working so hard. She's like, you've done it. She said, this is what I call a midlife opportunity. And I thought that was incredible. Mm hmm. I have to love something. I have to love what I'm doing. Otherwise I just can't do anything. I have to love it. There's no, I'm an on and off person. So the feeling of anxiety and depression and, and restlessness suddenly changed to one of excitement. There was still a little bit of anxiety there, but that's, that was okay because you know, I was going into unknown territory. So that's not, I thought that's natural. Of course. But it was this little, she lifted the lid on the excitement part and the kind of curiosity, midlife opportunity. You've done it. Give yourself permission to let that part go. You have done that. You've done it very successfully. Now let's explore where your heart is now and what, and what suits you and what, what is driving you and what your passions are. When she helped me articulate that and I gave myself permission to go onto the next journey, then that's when I decided to close Billy Kwong, hang up, hang up the Billy Kwong hat. That took a whole year to close down that space. You know, that was a very big restaurant. I had 44 staff. It was 150 seater, an incredible business partner and the whole bit like closing, know, there is nothing more stressful than closing. I think closing a restaurant down is just as stressful as opening a restaurant. Why didn't you want to keep it open and have somebody else operated? Because I've never been like, I'm just not like that. I like handwriting the specials. I like being there directing the traffic. Of course, I had my second chef. So, you know, obviously I had to have time off during the week. But at the same time, you know, I wanted to be there for my customers and, and keep an eye on all the projects. I love speaking to all of the providors every morning and checking out all of the beautiful, sustainable seafood and, you know, the wallaby tails coming in and all of Mike and Gail's beautiful native ingredients. So I'm not, I'm like, it was like a practice for me. It was a practice. It was a creative practice and a spiritual practice. It wasn't like a commercial job. And I wanted to, you know, build empires. I've never been like that. I've always been a one, one person, one restaurant person. I've always wanted to go deeper rather than broader. I didn't want to spend my life in, you know, planes going down to Billy Kwong, Melbourne and Billy Kwong, Brisbane or whatever. Like it had absolutely no interest in me. That's unbelievable. Actually, in these days, I would say that you didn't have FOMO or didn't dream of excessive wealth or whatever, you know, you're always on an inner journey rather than some outward journey. Always on the inner journey. And, and also, you know, I really, I saw it as a practice. It was a practice. Yeah. It's a beautiful way of looking at it. Well, yeah. And so when you, when you are, you know, practicing your practice, you're there every day. It was like a studio. That's how, that's how I've always seen it. So it was very liberating when I closed Billy Kwong and I was able to let that go. No sadness. The sadness, I felt during that 48 and the year when I started to feel restless because there was a letting go, but that sadness, I guess, got washed away with the sense of relief because there was so, you know, the stress of running a business, a restaurant, you know it, you understand it. So the relief of not having to be responsible for 44 staff anymore, all the customers with all their expectations, all of the behind the scenes costs that keep on increasing, etc. All of those issues. I was very able to let those go. So there was no sadness about that. I did feel deep inside of me that I had one, one restaurant left, but, but I knew it was going to be a very, very small place because, because I still loved the actual art of cooking and feeding people. But I was able to let go of that big place very, very soon in my mind. Have you ever felt periods where you're like stressed, where you feel deeply stressed? Absolutely. And I have to say the amount of times my mother and I, because, you know, when we had the, the small Billy Kwong, and this is before I had my incredible business partner who helped me open the big Billy Kwong, the amount of sleepless nights my mother and I had over that little place, because we didn't have a big business partner or anything. It was just mum and I and, you know, us. And I used to have this incredible, and I still have it. I have got an incredible trusting, natural trust in the universe. I have always had that feeling. And I don't want to sound wishy-washy, but it's all, I'm a firm believer. What you put out is what you get back. And I used to say, mum, don't worry. We're going to be able to pay that BAS bill or whatever. I said, something's going to happen. Well, sure enough, every single time it would happen, whether it was a, you know, some kind of role, whether it was an ambassadorship, whether it was a book deal or whatever it was, a TV series or whatever. Because, and I had this trust. I had this inner trust. This inner trust. I've always had that very strong inner trust. Um, and I think that's good to a point. But whenever any kind of, you like, you know, young people say to me, you know, what's your advice? You know, I want to open my restaurant or business or whatever. Get a bit. Do you have a business partner? I say to them, do you have a business partner? Have you got a lot of funds saved up? Do you have an accountant? They're the first things I say. I said, don't worry about the cooking. That's the easy part. You know how to do that with your eyes closed. That's why you want to open the business. And what about the managing? You know, how are you going to feel with the manage, with the managing of the staff? Do you have a good floor manager? All of those things. Yeah. Because the cooking part is what we're trained to do. And then the management actually operating a restaurant, being a leader. We never learned that. We never learned that. So I think those advice you're giving are crucial. And this next era, I guess, of our industry where if we get that right, how to manage, how to be financially sound, I think our industry would look so much different. You know, a happy and more prosperous place. And there's lots to be happy about, but it would be even happier and even better. Right. What I often say to people who are wanting to open up their own restaurant or whatever is why don't you I say, why don't you give it a go first and do a pop up somewhere just to get a sense of it, sense of the responsibilities, the costs, the rent, the behind the scenes costs that you never thought of. You know, when you're setting up a restaurant, you know, and all of the fire equipment and then the fire service bills and all of all of that stuff, the insurance that, you know, and on it goes, you know what I'm talking about. Oh, yeah. And let's not talk about, you know, what COVID did to our businesses. So I am very happy to have left that big restaurant. I was very happy to leave that big restaurant with all of its responsibilities behind. And then so that was 2019. And then in 2020, I was meant to open Lucky Kwong, my beautiful little jewel box. But of course, COVID happened. And so I opened it a year later. And that was just an amazing, beautiful space. It was it was 10 meters square bigger than the original Billy Kwong. So it was it was 80 meters square. And it was in this beautiful heritage building. It was so divine. I loved going into that space. Amazing open kitchen. I could stand there behind the pass. I used to do the expediting. I could see everybody who came in the door. I could see what they were eating. I could wave to them during their meal. And then I could wave them goodbye. And so that that was absolutely perfect. And there there was there were less than 10 of we employees, including myself. And most of them had been with me for about 10 years. So it was fantastic. There were there were very there were very few staff issues there. In that last in my last place, which was amazing. Talking about taking care of yourself. I have a few non negotiables. I work out. I go on an on a strenuous long hike every year between two weeks and five weeks. And I've actually a recommendation to you. I know you're practicing Buddhist. I went on a 1,200 kilometer long Buddhist walk called the Shikoku 88 in Japan. And you visit 88 temples and having grown up in a Muslim home, actually, but never felt connected to the religion or even to spirituality. But walking into 88 temples over the course of 40 days and each time you sort of go up and you do the practice. It was extremely cathartic. And I felt my brain going from a tense muscle to sort of just releasing into my skull. And it was like a jellyfish. I could almost mold it again. So how beautiful. And when did you do that? Actually, I've done it twice. The last time I did it was three years ago. That's one way of taking care of each other. So these non negotiables, I think that's a great way to start. You find the thing that gives you something and you don't no matter what. And that's how I do it. It doesn't matter what opportunity arises. It doesn't matter whatever. I don't cancel my workouts. I don't cancel my hikes for anything, unless it's super family related, but no business or nothing can change that. Yeah, important boundaries. It really is. It really, really is. And then you stepped into your new role. Yeah, that's right. I closed Lucky Kwong in 2024. And again, in about 2023, I had that restlessness. And I said to Nell, my wife of 19 years, and she's also like my greatest counselor. She's amazing. Nobody understands her more than nobody understands me more than Nell. I really value her opinion and insight. And I said to her, you know, I'm 55 now, you know, I'm still standing behind the stoves. I said, I don't want to be doing this when I'm 60 because I want to do something different. I want to do things differently. And I said, it's just too hard. I want to do something different. But I said, I don't know what to do. I've only ever been a chef and a restaurateur. And I said that same sentence to some of my friends and they're like, what do you mean? You know, you've had so much life experience. You can do consulting, mentoring. You've got, you've done a lot of work with the community and traveled a lot and all of these wonderful experiences. And so having these conversations with people who I really respected kind of started opening my mind a little bit to new possibilities. And closing Lucky Kwong was a huge, that was a huge, a huge moment. I mean, I, I told, I told, you know, I broke it to, to the world six weeks before we closed and the outpouring of grief and love from the community was completely overwhelming. It was the hugest six weeks of my life. Every single nanosecond and booking was taken up like the website crashed and it was just absolute mayhem. And every single person who came in for those six weeks, they were regulars. They'd been coming for 30 years. They all had stories to tell and they all, all walked past the pass while I was like drowning in dockets. And they all wanted to tell me their Billy Kwong story, their Lucky Kwong story. So that was this hugely emotional time, but it was the, it was the most, it was the finish that I could always, it was, it was the most beautiful finish. And now I've got my, my dream role, which is still absolutely connected to food, kitchens, chefs, cooks, restaurants, eateries, but on the other side of the kitchen on the other side, which is just so much more sustainable for me in this stage of my career. It's where it's the way I want to work these days. So I work at the Powerhouse Parramatta. So the Powerhouse Museum is, is the part of the largest museum group in Australia. My role is I'm a powerhouse associate. So that means I, I, what I'm doing is I'm helping the, the museum embed itself into the local community through the lens of food. So I go out every day and I get to work with all of the key multicultural groups, first nations, Pacific nations, the Muslim and Arabic community, Vietnamese group, community, Chinese and the Indian community. You can imagine the food, you can imagine the, the tales of immigration, the extended families. So many of them have been there for 20, 30, 40 years. You go into these tiny little modest eateries, mum's in the kitchen. She's 70. She, she started it all those years ago. She arrived, you know, on our shores with next to nothing, you know, a refugee from Vietnam. She's got her husband in the kitchen. She's got her daughter on the floor. She's got the grandkids dropping, dropping into the restaurant after, after school, doing their homework. You can imagine the incredible stories and energy there. And, and for me, it's like going into these beautiful family dinners every day. That is authenticity to me. Real life stories, real connections. And of course, because I come from an extended immigrant family as well. So I feel very at home there. I understand it. I understand the kind of culture and the energy and I just, it's, it's all about the stories. So at the powerhouse, we want to be led by the stories of community. We want to, we see ourselves as being of service to the community. And that's a really amazing, gracious positioning. What we're doing is tuning into the local Western Sydney community, capturing all of these wonderful stories and, and helping share and amplify these important voices in Australia's culinary history. So by the time the museum does open late next year, the whole community will feel like it's their museum. They'll feel a part of it. They'll feel, they'll feel a sense of belonging and ownership. I go to an eatery, you know, an Ethiopian eatery, this beautiful eatery called Gersha in Blacktown. I've made friends with the owners there now. And I speak to them and I'm like, oh my God, this is so beautiful. This food, what, what is this? What is Indra? What is this Ethiopian bread? Tell me about your culture. What is in this filling? You know, what is all of, all of these things? Can I have a look in your kitchen? And then, and then I've, I've, well, I've, I've gone there several times and then they invited me back to their house for lunch. They went, you know, they invited me to their home for lunch. So I went to their incredible home for lunch, this amazing Ethiopian traditional lunch in their home. They were all dressed in their beautiful, exquisite traditional costumes. And then to end the meal, they took me outside and they were roasting the beans for the traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony. Now this is in Blacktown. Like this is about 45, an hour, an hour away from where I live. And I get home that night and I was like, how was your day? And I'm like, it was so good. I went to Ethiopia. So I'm having this kind of, these kinds of experiences regularly. Not just, not just eating the food, but getting to know the family. It's about these, having these amazing, meaningful connections. Before you became a cook, you wanted to be an artist. And now you're in a museum. It's a sort of, it's a full circle in a way. That you're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. And, and the museum, it's going to be a, it's like a big kind of like dynamic arts and cultural institution. I mean, you're like an art curator, but food is a medium. I feel so invigorated. It's because I can, I feel like I can channel all of my life's experiences to date into this role. Food, restaurants, extended families, community, lots of community, art, culture. I now get to work with this incredible team. There's 500 people at the powerhouse as a whole, and it's still all about sharing food stories. It's about storytelling, which, which, you know, I've always loved doing as well. Lucky Kwong and Billy Kwong were, were my stories. I've done that. Now I'm interested in sharing and amplifying other people's stories. What's a, what I really am connected to you, to your person about is this constant transformation that you've gone through in your life. Um, I mean, you speak with such energy and what I love. I mean, sometimes when I speak to some of my old friends in town that are, I mean, we're we're kind of similar age or slightly older than me, but, um, most people don't have this passion. They are talking about problems, you know, and not about creativity and development. And I mean, you speak about a flatbread as if, you know, uh, it's the first day of spring. Uh, it's beautiful. It's really, really amazing. And I think to me that sort of energy lies in your transformation constantly. The fact that you dare and you listen to yourself and you go and speak to people, you don't just push it under the rug. And it's something we could all learn from you. I think, uh, to listen better to ourselves. And when there are moments of doubt, something that's going on, deal with it as opposed to pushing it under the rug. Yeah. And it doesn't, it doesn't always need to be so confrontational as well. I think, I think you hit it on the head there. I think the most important thing is to listen, to tune in. Hey, this is not like me. I'm, I'm not usually waking up every night for three months, tossing and turning what's going on, you know, like, so, so having the courage to kind of question ourselves or reflect. And then gently, when we feel like it, you know, maybe talking to a friend or a mentor or someone, you know, what do you think of this? But, but I think the most important thing is to actually have, have the awareness to, to reflect on whatever it is, because knowing that your life will improve. That's the truth. But I think in our industry, particularly in our industry, to even be doubtful, to even tell someone, Hey, I'm struggling. I need help with this. That is just not done. And I think it would be quite helpful. I think you're the proof of this. Well, interestingly enough, now in this new role of mine, and which is, I don't have a restaurant anymore or a staffer, I'm not this big, you know, business owner and, and the leader and all of that. I have been able to bring my softer side. I've been able to bring that forward because when I'm a boss, when I'm the boss of Billy going wrong and leading service and trying to manage everything and keep the energy up, because, you know, our restaurants are all about energy. And you know what happens when we get, when the boss goes in in a bad mood, well, you can forget it. It's over. So the whole, for 30 years trying, you know, putting on that brave face at, you know, at, at the pass, you know, that's exhausting, but that also, that also, you know, because you do it day in, day out, then you become that. You become this kind of, well, I became that, you know, spoke very quickly. I was very mad, not very good at listening because I was so busy all the time, you know, doing, doing things really quickly because that's what we chefs do, doing the pass, know, doing service, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, always very organized, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. There was not a lot of room for, for the soft side to come out. There wasn't, you know, hours to listen or hours and hours to read things because I was always working on the business or putting out bushfires or, you know, all of those things. So this, this new chapter is allowing this different side to come out, which is really, oh, I said to Nell, do you know what? I feel like I'm able to be more present and listen more. I've got more energy, physical energy. I'm not exhausted all the time. I'm not, I'm not worried about, you know, you know, such and such at work. I'm not stressing about or feeling cross about the fact that the cool room just blew up and there goes all the profits, you know, all of those things. Yeah. I know them. I still live with them. You're laughing because you know that. Yeah, of course. I think everyone, any cook, any restaurateur who listens to this know exactly that feeling. People experienced it in different ways. And, you know, part of, I would say this podcast and this podcast is a mad podcast and a part of the mad symposium has always been, how do we make things better? You know, what is, how can we adapt new ways of thinking so that this industry can just release its tension a little bit. And if that happens, a lot of people would be happier in the industry. And I still believe the industry is a fantastic place and there's so much joy and food and, but, you know, the thought of us being better at what we do is what would become amazing. And for this symposium, you know, we're trying to look into the future. It's called Built to Last, the next symposium coming here in May. And Built to Last can mean a lot of things, obviously, but to us right now, it's sort of peeking into the long distance and imagining a distant future and then thinking, if I could change something today for the future, what would that be? And so can you, what do you think, what would you change today? If you could imagine a future in 20 years, what would you change today that would make things so much better? I can't imagine that far ahead. But what I do know is, well, what's worked for me personally, so I'll just speak from my own experience, is constantly, yes, checking in, being connected to community. How can we make the industry better or things better? Taking better care of ourselves. Because, and I remember this wonderful quote that Smita Narula said at the MAD Yale Week, and she was one of the incredible lecturers, and she's an educator and a scholar and a human rights lawyer. And she said, the best way to take care of ourselves is to be connected to community. Because when we are of service to the community, that's when we are the best version of ourselves. And for me, that absolutely resonates. And that's why I really love this community work and being around people all the time, because it takes the focus off I and me. And it shifts that to us and we. And we know that that's when the magic happens. That's beautiful. I think, Kylie, that's the message of the month. It really is. It's beautiful. And I think, you know, being of service to your community, working for the we as opposed to the I, that's gotta be the way forward. That's the ideal 20 years from now, that we all work like that and we all feel connected to this great community of food. If we have that intention, then the 20 years will take care of itself. But we have to have that right intention first. Our heart in the right place first. And then everything will unfold as it should. And it will be perfect. Yeah. In a very fierce industry where people compete like maniacs, you know, you will have people that are neighbors in restaurants, but they never speak to each other. They actually don't help each other. Like if one restaurant has two tables free that night, the other restaurant don't push the guest over there. So, you know, there is a lot of community work that needs to happen in our industry. No doubt about that. But thank you for taking the time. Thank you for tuning in. It's a we're about to start the day here at the restaurant. People, I mean, you may have heard some noise. We have vendors coming with crates of fish. My dog is barking. Curious tourist has been looking through the window as I'm sitting here talking. And the day is starting and the worry is starting, but also the joy and the cooking and the wonderful guests. So I'm going to step into that now and I'm going to say thank you to you. Thank you. And I can't wait to come to Noma for lunch. Oh, I can't wait to see you. Great to see you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That is the message of this time. Thanks for listening to MAD Talks. Stay tuned for our final episode of season one. I promise you, you don't want to miss it. This podcast was produced by Sidsel Kaae Nørgaard and made by MAD. To learn more about us and our work within hospitality, make sure to follow us on socials @themadfeed. Sign up for our newsletter or check us out at madfeed.co. Thank you.