Nahji Chu, restaurateur; Miss Chu and Lady Chu

"My rice paper rolls are like cocaine" - Nahji Chu

On the menu: camp eggs and rice, rice paper rolls, and pizza in a cave. 

Sides include: what it was like fleeing Laos as a child, arriving in Cessnock as a refugee, going to school with Karen Martini, the rise and fall of Miss Chu, and a lot of swearing **warning  - if coarse words offend you, be prepared**

Nahji's social cause is First Nations Fashion and Design - a not-for-profit Indigenous Corporation whose core business is to support the development and sustainable growth of First Nations representation, access and growth in the fashion and design sectors. More here - firstnationsfashiondesign.com 

To find out more about the project and Savva - head to threefoodmemories.com
Insta - @savvasavas @threefoodmemories

Email us at threefoodmemories@plated.com.au, we'd love to hear from you! 

TFM is produced and edited by Lauren McWhirter with original music by Russell Torrance. 

Transcript

0:27

For all of us. My guest on this episode of Free Food Memories is a Vietnamese stormtrooper. No joking. Shaped by displacement and sharpened by experience, Najee choose life circles between survival, arrival, and authorship. Somewhere between belonging and becoming and the bureaucracy of small business. She's built it, she's lost it, and she's rebuilt herself. Najee is a woman of real conviction. She's fiercely generous, deeply instinctive, and entirely in her own lane. You'd be very hard-pressed to find anyone quite like her in this city. Ladies and gentlemen, please work on Lady Chu here at Najee Chu. Welcome all to Free Football. Are you feeling very nervous? Don't be nervous. Now Najee wants us all to know that she's not prepared. She hasn't seen the questions, so she's flying on the seat of a bar min. You ready, Najee? I'm basically just going to answer as honestly as I can and be as well. I always have always been authentic to myself. I will try to make you laugh or try not to cry, I think most of all. It's a story that needed to be told. I'm already shaking. The food tonight is very traditional. It's in the manner of what a Vietnamese family would have. So it all arrived at the same time. So it's usually we'll always have, if you're eating at home, a soup, a rice, and a protein. And then we'll end with dessert. So Najee, last week you said to me, I'm a cantankerous old Vietnamese lady. I am the total sum of what Australia made me. Which part of Australia can we credit for that? The racism bit. How was that felt? Like here you are, so you've had it, you've had a life of racism, you're somewhere like in your 50s. Well well look, so the difference is, were you born in Australia? I was. Okay, so that's the difference between you and I. I'm a Vietnamese refugee, I'm not first generation. However, you're first generation. So you come with the you've already come with the um the privileges of what your parents have been through. So I'm on the other hand in your parents' seat, but I sound just like you because I worked really hard at speaking English and assimilating. In fact, I've done too much of that. So therefore I sounded like someone who's actually born here. But I'm not, I came at the age of nine years old. So there are two massive differences. I'm not a migrant, I'm a refugee. I'm not a first generation, I'm an actual refugee. A few days ago when I asked you were you excited about tonight, and you said tonight felt more of a responsibility than it did an excitement feeling, because you said you were repres representing the Vietnamese refugee diaspora, holding both memory and expectation at once. I mean this is a very big and heavy responsibility. Where does it come from? Well, I mean it comes from being born in Southeast Asia, from being Vietnamese, but then having to also explain that I'm Laoshian because I'm born in Laos. Don't forget when I arrived in '78, no one even knew what Laos was. Not many people even knew where even Vietnam was, let alone where Laos was. So I came with having to explain to my to Australia where I came from. But also I came from a country with massive culture and especially food culture, where everything was community-based. By the time we arrived in 1978, there was no such thing as this is my neighbour. Because, you know, like we'd when when we arrived, we'd say, Hi, we've just arrived, here are some spring rolls, here are some rice paper rolls, and our neighbors would go, Oh my god, these people don't even have any idea of what privacy is. So we were like, wow, okay, so how about a street party on the weekends? No, we're your neighbor and we expect privacy. Um so it comes from having to escape from the age of five years old on a canoe via the Mekong River. I don't want to talk about the Vietnamese refugee story because it's too common. You all you all know it. It's it gets really boring. You say that it gets like, oh no, not that Vietnamese story again. You say you say that Naj, but a lot of us have never experienced that, a lot of us never lived in one. So in order for us to have an understanding, these stories are important to us. You escape, you're on a canoe, you have to be quiet, you're five years old, and you're crying and you're petrified. And the men pushing the canoe say, You've got to be quiet, our lives are in danger. You don't know that. So their prerogative is to get us from the canoe in Laos across the Mekong River to Thailand as safe as we can. And just before we hit the border of Thailand, a ship came out, well, not a ship, a big boat, with men pointing rifles at us. Basically, we'd been busted crossing, escaping our own country. Jail for three months, sick, um, all sorts of third world diseases. Don't forget, when we lived in Laos, we had three maids, three cars, a Vespa, three, like a house, very, very wealthy. So arriving in jail was a cult a massive culture shock for my father, his men, myself. Three months later, we were let go. Only after my father had said, so well, they knew who he was. Obviously, he came from immense wealth. Because in April 1975, you only escape the country if you're a somebody. It's the same month the King of Flowers escaped. My grandmother used to cook for the King of Flowers. My father was a very notable character and he had a fuckload of money. True. And then, so anyway, three months later we were let go and we had to make our own way into a refugee camp. So we foraged through the jungles of Thailand, found a refugee camp. I'm just speeding up this story for you. You get enlisted as a refugee, and then from there on, for the next three years in Thailand, we went from North Thailand, one camp, one year later, to another camp, another year. So that's two years. Our names are called out. You're going to another camp, by which time it was just outside of Bangkok. Our name came up, and we thought, hopefully, we're going somewhere. So this is three years later in refugee camps, by which time I was eight years old. So I'd grown up in refugee camps. And that's gonna make you be somebody. That survival instinct, but also it was more like get me out of this hellhole, and wherever I end up, I'll I'll make sure I'll be the best citizen ever for the rest of my life. Anyway, so here I am, and um if I became a contankrous old bitch, it's it's fucking because you made me that. She said she wasn't going to talk about it, but I wasn't going to rest until we got it on tape. Thank you, Najee. Everyone was very interested. So I want to um I I you say that refugees make profound contributions for the positive worldwide. They do, and I've got some quite serious statistics. Refugees are considered among the most entrepreneurial migrants in this country, being nearly twice as likely to start a small business as the average Australian. In a 2025 Australian Institute of Family Studies, this report found that 21% of humanitarian migrants, which you were, were self-employed within 10 years of settlement. A further research from the Australian Centre of Policy Development, this is a Commonwealth agency, projected that launching 1,000 refugee-run businesses a year could generate a billion dollars worth of revenue for the Australian economy. Now she, why do you think these statistics and these facts are not out there enough? We don't want to hear it. We just don't want to hear it. And of course, on the other side we do, and all we feel is we'll prove you worthy. And we still do. I mean, here I am nearly 50 years later, still having to prove myself worthy. But what I'm getting is she's a bitch, she's a cunt, she's rude. Where's it? I know that, but it's it's just more about the mainstream. Actually, Henry, and you can start the food now. Controlling. Yeah, and controlling. So that's another one. Um she's so controlling. But without being all those things, I wouldn't have this profoundly successful business that, mind you, a lot of businesses have copied since even before Miss Chu. I mean, my family have been here since 78, and we were the first ones to bring Asian food into the country. Not the first, one of the very first. I remember arriving in Sesnog, and the Aussies were like, What the fuck is that? It's a spring onion. And then the kids at school would follow us at home, and then mum would be like, What the fuck are these kids doing here? There's six of you, and if one of you brings home a friend, there's all of a sudden 12 people to feed. So she had to make chicken fried rice, and there was chili on the table, and this Aussie kid, Michael, Rigby. And um, so they own they own the farm that we worked on. So the rigbies have had thousands of chickens, which supplied stegels, and he bit into a chip a chili and he ran around like a headless chicken, literally. And he basically said to his parents, these people are so fucking evil, they tried to kill me. So they'd never seen chili before, they'd never seen coriander before, and nor did so we grew all these things in the garden. Um, but what was spoken about at school was they're so poor they have to grow their own food. So this first food memory that we're about to get into is about is about survival and resilience. In the in the camps in Thailand, you survived on rice and eggs. So you get a ration every day. Um, so each family gets a bowl of rice, each family gets one egg. That's pretty much it. Everything else you've got to find yourself. You've got to grow yourself, you've got to find yourself, and um, which we did, you know, like the Vietnamese people, I just don't know what it is about our genes. We just know how to grow vegetables out of nothing. Uh like there was no water for some time, and we dug a hole and a plastic thing and a a stick up the plastic and relied on condensation to create water. You know, like we did all sorts of things like that, and there was dirt, we'd make clay pots to be able to cook with. Um, we ate crickets, well, well, not really. I mean, Kylie Kwan gave me crickets once, and I was like, even in the refugee camp, I didn't eat crickets, so fuck no. Um she made me eat ants too one one year when it was Aboriginal week, and I said, sorry, I'm a refugee, but I'm not gonna eat six ants. Um yeah, so we survived on meager produce, but somehow we just grew things and survived. And so then when you came to Australia and were in the refugee camp, they gave you some strange things, didn't they? So by the time we arrived in Australia 78, which was so we arrived in Kingsford, Thai Airlines. I didn't come by boat, even though my brand says I came by boat. I branded myself as a boat person for I mean, because I just wanted positivity out of refugees. I arrived by plane as a refugee, and we arrived in Bass Hill Hostel, which is now Villawood. And yeah, so you had to stay there for six months as a mandatory thing. Um and we had to eat like yogurt, which we thought was like vomit. We just didn't get it. We were like, oh my god, how why would you eat vomit? And there was bread, square bread, and butter, which we didn't know, we didn't know how to eat bread. So we buttered it with sugar and put it under the salamander and watched it bubble, and that's how we ate um cornflakes with milk. We just didn't know how to eat milk. You said um, you've also said, you've said many things, Australian suburbia almost extinguished my cultural memory. Give us a snapshot of what Australian suburbia was like once you left the camps. Well, we arrived in Cessnock and can you imagine some arriving in Cessnock was just um it was unlike anything we've ever seen because we came from you know Lung Prabanglaus was mopeds, cars, meet meat, live culture, markets, hustle and bustle, life. I mean, there's just an abundance of trees on the street, mangoes, mango steen, everything was falling off the trees, and you could eat pretty much for free. By the time we got to Sesnok, it was like, man, there's the coals, everything's coming out of tins, they're eating chickens, frozen chickens, and there was no market, there was no fresh veggies. Um, there was no neighborly thing, like you know, like uh every weekend you'd go to the temple or something like that. There was just nothing like that. Eventually your family made it good in Melbourne. They got it together, and there's this wonderful story I want you to share with everyone about a conversation that you and a young I you've actually I I interviewed Karen Martini on my show. There's this beautiful bit where she leaves school because she's had enough. But the reason why she leaves school is because of this particular conversation on a tram. I went to school with Karen Martini and I was two years older than her, and we'd always catch the tram together to Flinder Street Station, and she was always really jealous of me because I came from a foodie family. And one day she said, I'm gonna leave school. I said, What do you mean? You're 14. She goes, I'm gonna leave school. I just want to do what your family do. I want to have a restaurant, I'm gonna go and do an apprenticeship. And I was like on the tram holding on to the you know, car like this. She goes, No, I'm serious. And they went, Karen, you can't do that. You've got to do your year 12. Nah, fuck it. No way, I'm gonna do my apprenticeship and I don't care what people say. I I just don't, I just don't fit in. I don't fit, I'm this like fuck home economics making scones and aprons. Um so we went to this school, it was like all nuns, Vaucluse College in Richmond. So, like, you know, like I'm like, are you serious? She goes, nah, seriously, I'm gonna leave school and start a restaurant. And then she did. I just couldn't believe it. She she went straight away from school, she finished straight away from school and went to Mietta's and knocked on the door and said, I want to come and work for you. And Mietta said, Have you seen how many men are in my kitchen? No way, come back, little girl. You're not welcome. And she persisted and she stayed, and that's where she went off. And the rest of the story is quite funny. So if you've got a moment, she's on the on the catalogue. But your family were really big in the food space. You said before that your grandmother cooked for the king. What was that like? For me, um, I don't remember the king, I because even if he's the king, he's roaming around the t the temple, not going hi on the king of Laos. You know, like he's just another person in the village being an ordinary citizen, even though he happens to be the king of Laos. So you do go to the temple and you do bow, and everyone in the village goes, you know, every Saturday, every Sunday, everyone goes to the temple. It was just like routine, and you bring food, and the Buddhist monks get fed by the community. So for me, it was just really nice being with Grandma all the time and the cousins, and then with the Buddhist monks, and you you go and have your wrist blessed with those white cotton things, and you get your um you get your your message, which basically would be like your fortune cookie, I suppose. But you'd say to the Buddhist monk, hi, these are my problems, and he goes, Yep, got it. And then he would just write it down, and then he'd go, There you go, that's my advice to you. And that was a ritual every weekend. It was really it was just it just felt really nice. It felt like that was my normal. Um and then there was a very, very fantastic aunt too, wasn't there, in this family? So my auntie is my father's older sister, and he she she and my father ran this racket in Laos where they had employed a lot of Laoshans like hill tribe, hill tribe Laoshians. But what they worked out was they grow opium up in the hills. And my father worked it out that a lot of Americans, very well-to-do Italian Italians and French, were going into Lungabang Laos in the 60s to score opium. But in in the kilos and the ties. So he he realized that there was just millions of dollars leaving Laos via the opium trade, and that we that he was a Laoshan, felt like the country was being raped and pillaged by the French, the Japanese, before that, the Chinese, and then in his lifetime, the Thai, the Italians, and the French. So he and his sister, my aunt, got in on the trade, literally, and they would drive up to the hills, pack kilos of opium into their cars, like into the cavities of the cars, into his vests, hide it, and then sell it to whoever they could in Rungabang Laos. So, like, that's that's basically how he amassed his fortunes. And he told everyone that he was a car mechanic. So, so so did your love of food and feeding people, actually, let's look at it this way. What came first? Your love of food or your love of feeding people, chicken or the egg? I mean, obviously everyone loves food. My passion wasn't to become a restaurateur. My passion was to be by the time I arrived in Australia, really, my passion really was to be a journalist and or a filmmaker because I wanted to tell my story. It was immense. It was, you know, like I knew that I had lived a life that was profoundly different to the school kid sitting next to me, even in grade five. So therefore, I wanted to be a journalist. But I'd failed in all of those ventures and fell into food only because I was a Waiter, and then I picked up a few more shifts at a catering company, and so I was waitressing, catering. I had five jobs in one week in Melbourne, and that's pretty much how I learned. Um I learned that working for some Jewish catering companies in Melbourne, that most of the Jews were also really sick of getting another potato lucky with a salmon and a creme fraîche on top. So I knew that I was, you know, like every time I did a catering job, I'd be in the kitchen going, I can make rice paper rolls, and then like just pass around the canopies, Nadi. And then one day I did make rice paper rolls and it just disappeared. And then they booked me for the next job, and I'm like, see, my rice paper rolls are like cocaine. Um so that's how I slowly fused myself into the hospitality world. Let's look at this is the part of the story that you really want to tell tonight. I want to look at the rise of Miss Chu and the very public and humiliating loss of it. I mean, who remembers Miss Chu? It was that street, poppy, you know, confident brand. This particular part of your story, I'm reminded of a moment just before my babies were born, about six weeks before I was to bring them in the country. And Miranda Devine had just written an article called The Horrors of the Boutique Baby Scandal. And this is what she wrote. I know of at least two other well-known gay male couples in Sydney who have babies on order, and another high-profile single gay man about to take delivery of his twins. I mean, she was very clever not to mention me by name, but it had my fingerprints all all over it. Uh, it was hugely distressing, and I had a there was that moment where I had to go, you know what, I'm not sure what I'm gonna do here, but if I don't own this from the onset, my children are gonna live being boutique horror babies for the rest of their life. So, if anyone is in touch with Miranda Devine, please send her my best and tell her that I have two of the best, most extraordinary children who are contributing to this world. No offence, Miranda. So, I mean, but but when I look at this, at the imagery and the storytelling around Miss Q, I see something similar. I see your taking ownership of your refugee identity, the photos of you from the passports, and and shaping it into something entirely your own. You taking control of your story and the pen. How did you translate that into a food ex the food experience, the food empire that was Miss Chu? When I started Miss Chu, no one knew what it was. It was a hole in the wall that had never succeeded ever, and it was known as Tranny Corner. But I didn't know that because I came from Sydney. So that is the beauty of um naivety and no research and little knowledge of Sydney. All I saw was I can afford that, and then I went, there's a city view. Fantastic. And it used to be this Indian shop, and I anyway, if you speak to Daniel Gunning, he goes, he goes, you're the only person I've ever experienced in my entire life as a real estate agent that begged to get the space, right? Because usually they go, nah, it's too expensive, nah, like it's fucked, this and that. On the other hand, I said, I'm the perfect person for this size, please give it to me. I can afford it. Like, you don't say I can afford it, you go, it's too expensive. Anyway, so he goes, Yeah, sure. Anyway, so I signed the lease. I didn't even test whether the water was running. The backflow, nothing. So that first site that was the most successful site, I had to put in $30,000 worth of infrastructure. That's just the electricity. Another $20,000 worth of plumbing infrastructure, that's the plumbing, that's $50,000 for a small business. And then it kept going on and on again, right? There was no phone line. I had to put it all in. Basically, I had rented a little tiny shell that looked like it had everything in it. It had jack shit. But I made that site into a gold mine. Literally. So, Naj, your very your self-reflection is very sharp. So you built it, this business, right? It went, there were multiple sites that were in London. At one point there were nine restaurants. Twelve. Twelve restaurants. So your self-reflection is sharp, your sense of responsibility is clear. Okay, so don't forget though. The year the internet broke out, I had already had a site in Melbourne, and I had already done Byte. Okay, so Byte was based on Pet à Mongere in London. Melbourne had never seen or heard anything like it. And I kept saying to Melbourne, and it we so I worked for James Orloff, and he's one of the smorgans. So I was a small-time caterer in Melbourne, right? And I had a tiny catering business called Walkoff. And you know, so one day James Orloff said to me, you know, you're very good at what you do. Would you consider closing down your business to work for me full-time? And I said, What are you thinking? He goes, Okay, so there's this concept in London called Pretmonger, and I said, never been. And he goes, so I plan on doing a Pretemongère in Australia, and we'll start it in Melbourne, right next to McDonald's on hardware lane. Would you like to work for me full-time as the food manager? And I went, how much are you gonna pay me? He goes, how much are you earning? I went, I asked you first. And he goes, 40 grand. I went, yep, done, easy. For me, that was a lot of money back then. And then it turns out it wasn't. Two years later. So we did bite, and I said, so basically, James, what's happening in Melbourne at the moment is a brand called Schwabs, and they are fucking killing it in sandwiches. He goes, duh, that's why we're opening Pretemongger called Bite, and it's going to be on the internet, no one's done it yet. You can pay on the internet with your credit card. And I said, Yeah, but the thing is, James, I know it's all fast food and pre-packaged, but the thing about Melbourne is we're fucking snobs, and we don't eat square bread cut in half, and therefore it's a triangle. Because don't forget, you're competing against schwabs, which is that bread, sourdough. What happens when you cut it in half? You get a D shape, and it's a designer sandwich. And so, therefore, in order to go head on with schwabs, you're gonna have to design a piece of packaging that is a D-shape. And I'll design all the sandwiches, and it'll be in and out in 30 in one 30, well, 60 minutes. And he goes, fuck you're good. That's it, that's the business model. I go, see? And that's how we did it. So bite, the internet, da-da, and then we took it one step further. So we I had a bicycle, and I said to a friend of mine who was a builder, so make that into an electric, not an electric bike, it's like a motorised bike, and I'll deliver all the sandwiches in the city of Sid uh Melbourne on these motorised bikes. Anyway, so there I was chugging along up up to 101 Collins Street, like you know, the Victor mowing machine, like going like smoke coming up, and I'm chugging up the hill, sweating, and people are laughing at me with this basket and a bag on the on the basket going up the hill, and then I'm like, get off in the lift, 101, level 39. Everyone's laughing at me, and I said, This is the future, this is actually the future. You're gonna be ordering food on my internet site. Anyway, so it didn't happen, it didn't happen the way that we wanted it to because no one trusted the internet back then. So they were like, There's no way I'm giving you my credit card over the internet. It was too new. No one had even had Mary at Hotmail.com. No one, literally, most people were like, what the fuck is dot com? Can't I just fax you? Can I just like ring you my order? Can I just fax? Then eventually I designed this fax order, right? Then you had to tick it, fax it in, and like and remember, and remember when I started Miss Chu? You still had to fax it in, even though I had a website. MissChu.com. Remember? But still, people were like, nah, I'm gonna fax in the orders. And then I'd be like, hi Telestra, I need another phone line. Literally, and the phone would be ringing, there was no cash register. You remember all this? If you were there, I was the one going, get your change ready, make sure you know your order, and then I'm like $12.50, there you go, $2 change. Next. So that was the start of the internet. So when I first arrived, when I started Miss Chu in Sydney, there was only Pizza Hut, Domino's, there wasn't even Crust Pizza. And then I went, or there's Miss Chu. Literally. And then by the time I had by the time Miss Chu was two years old, Cross Pizza had an app. I already had my app. I already had electric bikes. This is five years before Menulog came along. Five, six years before Uber Eats came along. So we were already in my second year turning over something like five mil. We started off with one mil, two mil, three mil. Nine years later, 25 mil per year, turnover. And and then I want to I want to go back to it. And it's huge. But that's where the problem, that's where it all started going crazy. And this is what I want to know, Nash. Because you are your self-reflection is fantastic and your sense of responsibility is spot on. What do you think your role was in all of this just disappearing from you? This this was a successful refugee story. What do you think you did wrong here? Um okay, so now we're getting to the story that everyone wants to hear, the story that I've never told the world. Unless you're my best friend in my house. So I know there's a few journoses with your recorders on. I don't fucking care. Tell the world. Um it's not just my fault, even though it was. It's like this you've got a plane load of people who just want to get on the plane because you're going to the best destination. So everyone's like, I just want to get Miss Chu because it's the best food at the best price. And it got delivered to you. Like it got delivered to you way too fast, even. People would be like, what do you mean? I'm in the shower. How can you be here in 15 minutes already? These were some of the common complaints. Um and no, actually, I want to tell you this one story that's really interesting. When Miss Chu started, it was immensely successful, and I just was just like, fuck the cra the cra the the orders are coming through thick and fast, and then I'd be like, one, three, one, double, oh, wait. Hi, um, parcel pickup, please. Uh, where is it going to Alexandria? Yep, um, yep, thank you. Then the taxi would come and I'd go, hi, what's your name? Henry. How much does it cost approximately to get to Alexandria? Because the the meter hadn't gone yet. Remember, this is before everything became so automated. He goes, I don't know, I go, just guess. He goes, I don't know, 15, he's 20. It's cash. Just take it to this address and then come straight back. Okay? And then and then can I get your mobile? And then then, right? 131008, the next one. What's your mobile number? Just guess. There you go, there's 25 bucks, just go to Surrey Hills, come back. So then they have eight taxis just lining up, just collecting orders. Come back, click, come back, click, keep going. And then you, right, week in, week out, they're like bringing friends, going, hey mate, you know, like there's a shop going, right? It's right in Burke Street. Just gotta rock up, line up, she'll give you the box, she'll give you cash, and then just gotta do it all over again. Stop going to the airport, it's fucking great. That's how Uber Eats started. I did that, that was like in 2009. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Oh wow. Big time oh wow. Anyway, so then it just became crazy nutcase mental, um, which is Vietnamese for busy. And so the question is, where did it go wrong? Okay, so then I decided put an ad in for a store manager. There's all these Indian names, there's all these names I can't pronounce, even though I'm Asian. And then I get it. So I go, no, give them a chance. Hi, Vindapur Manut Manak Manatcha. So, uh, can you come in for an interview, please? Oh, and then he's like, nah, sorry, English is not fast enough. Right? So, because you had to be really fast on the phone then, because there was no automation. It had to be, hi, Miss Chu, right? And yet, and I was the only person who could speak English back then at my store. They were all Asian students. And I taught them all English, mind you. So whilst I was being an English teacher, I was also being fucking everything, the PA for myself, the general manager to myself, the bookkeeper, the accountant, the photographer, the marketing girl, the yep, the tuck shop lady, all of it. So then I went, nah, you need a general manager. So then I saw David Birch, that'll do. Hi, come in for an interview, and he goes, Najee, I used to work with you in Melbourne. I go, what the fuck? You've got the job. Twelve months later, he's got the job, and I go, okay, I'm opening a store in Bondi, I'm opening a store at the Opera House, I'm opening a store everywhere, right? I said, so anyway, we're really busy and staff had grown. I said, David, your job is to replicate yourself. You need you now need to replace yourself so that you can manage the catering kitchen. So I started replicating each section of my team. Like, so the the chef, find another staff member, you'll get a bonus. You find another staff member, you'll get it. So I gave all my staff bonuses to replicate themselves. And I go, that's your so you shadow him, you shadow her, right? And then where did it all go wrong? It got too busy, and I had started a business without all the infrastructure in place. Because it would, it just, the demand was too high. Remember the days when people were like, when am I gonna have one in Annandale? When am I gonna get one in Redfern? Like everyone was emailing me. There were hundreds, and there were people lining up going, when can I invest with in you? When are you gonna IPO? I want to invest in you. It was just like thick and fast. And I felt this responsibility to have a Miss Chew here, there, and everywhere. But also, there were investors going, if you take on this site, we'll just pay out, we'll just pay the fit out for you, we'll give you a hundred grand to open there. And I just thought that that was just like so lucrative and inviting. But so cut a long story short, I had trusted too many staff. I didn't have the infrastructure in the back end to make it clockwork, even though it was working. Like miraculously, I did have eight stores and it was all working. It was the one year where I started to bundle all up, bundle it all up for a sale. Okay. So let's say this is five years later and he went, I think you're you're ready to structure it in such a way that he's now ready to sell it to someone who wants to franchise it and then just get out. That was the year that it all went under. So I don't want to oversimplify it by saying one causes the other, your refugee experience and this failure of a business outcome. However, there's a there's a pattern here of forces acting on you and how you respond. Yet you refuse to be displaced. Why do you refuse to go down? Because I've got the best story I've ever known of anyone I know. It's authentic, it's true. I've given culture to Australia, and I shouldn't have lost what I'd started. I shouldn't have lost what I designed, which was my entire DNA, my people's DNA, my people's culture. I was very generous. My people who worked with me and for me, like you see now, were generous, and it was wrong that it was it was taken away from me. It was wrong that the three men that I trusted who were my GMs, my joint venture partner, all stole from me. Yes, they did. Absolutely they did. They saw a gap in my company and they took it from me. But the thing is, I allowed them to, right? But I didn't expect that the ATO was going to punish me for being so successful. They, you know, by the time I was oh, that's even better. Now you can hear me better. Have you not heard my story all night? Because now I can hear myself. No, but what happened was the ATO said, so guess what? Your payroll tax is over a million, we're gonna charge you an extra 1.6%, which was huge. Um and then when you have three general managers put their hands in their pockets and take one million each, that's another three million in one year. Right? And that's that's a lot of money in one year. Like that's four million dollars that's meant to be in the bank account that wasn't. So you let's let's fast forward all of that now, Lady Chu. You've writ you rewrote the story, you're here on Rue de Chu. But before we get there, I want to I want to head to Italy for a bit. Can you tell me about that really sweet meal that you had at the Italian, the Michelin star restaurant in Italy? Well, you know, okay, so you've made money and you've travelled, um, and I did, and so you know, like don't forget when Mistry went under, everyone or the journals wrote that I had this glamorous lifestyle. It's like, give me a break. I worked really hard. Why is it that you guys get to go to Europe and spend big? And I'm not allowed to. But the one year that I did spend big, I went to this really tiny place in Tuscany. Tiny town, like um five hours. Well, you get to Tuscany, then you've got to drive another one and a half hours further south in the Amati Mountains, and I ended up at this the only three star Michelin restaurant, and it was funded by the Medici family. And I looked it up. I made a reservation. I was only, I was one of two people. It was me and my best friend. And we were the only two in the restaurant. And for me, I thought it was the most amazing experience of all time. However, my best friend said, It's a bit quiet, don't you think? And I went, No, it's perfectly quiet. This is what you want. And anyway, so the owner came out and he said, You know, I do have a restaurant in New York. And I went, Yeah. And this is your home. And he said, Yeah, so I'm funded by this really rich family. And they're wealthy enough just to have this the luxury of having a restaurant here. And even if we don't have any customers for months on end, they'll still keep it open. It was wild. And then he said, So how long are you here for? And I went, Well, another few days. And he said, So you need to go to this pizza restaurant up in the caves. And it's in the same town. Anyway, so I had the most amazing pizza I've ever had in my entire life. It's in this literally, you drive up to this village and it's in a cave. And there's 20 people in there, and they're all locals. Not one single tourist other than me and my friend. So that was for me probably the most profound dining experience out. This it feels like this experience brought you back to your love of food and the restaurant world. Um, in in in in many ways, I would say it led you here to Lady Chu, this beautiful. Oh no, I'm wrong. I was already here way before that restaurant. Oh that was just my holiday. Okay, so so let's look at let's look at Lady Chu now. Um what of this latest version of Najee in your 50s have you written into Lady Chu? Okay, so why why Lady Chu? Um and I'm not talking about the cantankerous old Vietnamese lady version. No, losing Miss Chu was probably the most humiliating thing anyone could go through. Um it was really public. Um it fell on a high. I remember Juno's ringing me on the day that it went into voluntary administration, and they said, I don't understand, it is probably the most successful takeaway company in all of Australia, other than Pizza Hut and Domino's. So what happened? I'm actually eating your rice paper oils as I'm interviewing you. And I said, Well, I didn't have actually that much debt. I don't know why it even had to get this far. Like my general manager put it into voluntary administration because he was trying to control the company. Anyway, they said, but surely you knew what was going on. I said, I was in Japan trying to speak to investors whilst he was saying, hey babes, by the time you land, which is in two days' time, you'll be lucky to even get into your house. And I said, What the fuck are you talking about? I won't name his name because I'll probably get sued, but he he tried to sue me. I sued him back and I won. The police even like said, this guy is a complete nutcase criminal. He's even trying to sue us. Um but anyway, I lost Miss Chu. And then for 10 years, since the closure of Miss Chu, I was still catering for Maryvale from home because I have a very big house. Um, and that was pretty much my sole income, but in the back of my mind, I I knew that it couldn't have ended that way. It couldn't like I represented so much about the Vietnamese diaspora that there was no way that Miss Chu gets to be owned by a white man who who JV'd you in Melbourne, who now owns your brand. There's no fucking way that's your history. There is no way that he gets to own Miss Chu and your face, and the branding of Miss Chu is your face. And then by the time I was exited, there was my face on every single box, which I would never have done. It's overkill, it's on the bag or the front of the shop, and that's it. It needs to be nuanced, it needs to be beautiful, and it need not be so fucking tacky. So, anyway, Melbourne, so he so this Mist Chew owner now, he's so desperate for everyone to know that I still own it, that he's put my face on every single thing you touch, and it's it fucking disgusts me. And so, therefore, that is one of the reasons why I went, no. This my story can't be written up like that. That's not what you set out to do. Your story is so elegant, it's so nuanced. Each store has a heartbeat, each store looks so authentic, even though it's a company-owned franchise. But I always resisted against franchising, unlike Rold, who copied the fuck out of me and then started doing all these entrepreneurial talks, as I started this Vietnamese brand, da-da-da. It's like fuck you, man, you copied Miss Chu and now you get to own all the accolades. I got really angry at it at that, but I wasn't Miss Chu anymore. I had to sit at home and fucking stew and chew it up without getting cancer andor alcoholism andor drug addiction. And I've beat all three. So here I am back to tell my story because literally, there is no way someone else gets to own what I created, even though I don't. I'm like, you don't own my face, it's my face. You can't say, but that's the marketing tool, and that's how it was sold to us when we bought it. Like, no, the contract you wrote me, motherfucker, was towards yourself. I was the naive one who didn't read the contract because I trusted you as my business partner. So that was my fault, of course. Like, I started a business without reading the fine line. What a fucking idiot. Never again though. Now I'm fucking in business with a spreadsheet. Right. And a contract and no more business partners. Yeah. So um, Naj, is Charlie here? Charlie is here, Charlie Fraser. Charlie's here. So, Naj, you've chosen first um First Nations Fashion and Design as your social cause. Now I'd like Charlie to come up. Charlie is um the uh one of the directors of the First Nations Fashion and Design and founder. Charlie, can you please come up and talk a little bit about the organisation? But as Charlie makes her way up, why have you chosen this organisation as your social cause? So in my first year of Australia in Cessnock, um the the the teacher said you can sit next to her and she was Aboriginal because everyone hated me. And um so so my first friend in Cessnock was an Aboriginal girl, and then years and years later I met Charlie and I told Charlie my story, and she goes, No way, I'm from Nick Nock. Get close onto it. And then so I said, Oh, so there's this girl who sat next to me, her name's Rachel. She goes, That could have been my auntie. Wait, this was your story. Yeah, yeah, that you were telling me. Yeah, yeah. So um, Charlie, please tell us about this organization and and what it sets out to do. Um so FNFD, it stands for First Nations Fashion and Design, and it's um we are completely Indigenous run and led. We are a not-for-profit organization, and what we do is we we really try and cultivate culture into the fashion industry and we nurture all of our artists and it spans from it spans from fashion designers to models to performers and all different kinds of artists and we're really here to just try and bring um culture to the fashion industry and to maintain it, and it is a version, it is our way of continuing to tell our stories. What do you think needs to change in the industry to really drive this First Nations influence further? What's really different about what we do at FNFD is that working with culture and Indigenous peoples and communities specifically, we move so differently. We're much more we're slower in the way that we do things, and we're very intentional, and there's a lot of care and a lot of respect, and it's it's less commercial, and it's more about art and the art of storytelling. So what we've found really difficult with working within the fashion industry is that fashion is so fast. And it has specifically become so much faster. And it's just not how we operate. And so it feels almost disrespectful to be rushing these beautiful techniques of naturally dyeing things and uh going out and uh specifically you know, shredding trees and palms and drying them out and laying them with like ochre. It's you know, it's it's artistry and it's come from the earth. And you just can't rush that. It's a it's a it's wellness, it's health, it's mental health. It's connection to land as well. It's that physical, tangible connection to land where you spend time with the earth and so much of our culture is that's what gives us life. That's why we preserve what gives us life. Charlie, thank you so much. For more information, head to the website, which is I've just lost it. Which head to the website, which is First Nations. Charlie, Charlie, help me. FirstNationsFash and Design.com. Thank you, Charlie. No worries. So we're wrapping up really, really quickly here. We've got a few more things to go to. So here at Free Food Memories, we have a um a Martha Stewart section where you know our previous guest shares their kitchen life wisdom with our current guest. So our last guest was British chef Emily Scott. For you, she says, rush slowly. Speaking, just speaking to what Charlie said, rush slowly, enjoy being in the moment, enjoy that first cup of tea, enjoy the ritual of making a cupper and sitting down and having a chat. So there's three phrases when I think of you, Najee, that you say all the time. I love my gaze, act like a counselor clover, and I'm busy, I'm so busy, busy, I'm just busy, I'm the busiest person I know. How does Emily's advice of rush slowly sit with you? I I I'm actually really good at giving myself that advice, believe it or not. So, yes, when I was Miss Two, I was fast and furious, but I did it for the people because the food was fast food. And if you're not fast and furious, you don't have a fast food business. So don't take the fact that I was efficient and and a little bit maybe contankerous in my manner with with like she's rude. You got your food fast, and you got your food at a fucking great price. But these days I haven't changed. I do enjoy every moment of the rushness that I do. Like, even with my staff, you can interview each and every one of them. I know I'm widely known as she yells at people. It's actually not true. It's what you hang on to, it's what you remember. But what you don't remember is I take holidays with my staff and I say to them, don't forget, when you're setting up in the morning, you're actually meditating. You don't have to go to yoga and do yin to meditate. You can actually meditate whilst bringing out all the furniture. You're meditating at the end of the night whilst dismantling the restaurant. Don't forget, this is a pop-up five days a week, 52 weeks of the year, for the next 20 years, possibly more. That's a lot of meditation to do. So, you know, like I'll I I don't take anyone's judgment on me because I know who I am. Like, there is no way you can beat me down, even though I'm too short to be cut down. But there is no way you guys can actually make me diminished. Like, you need to be less angry, you need to be a bit more soft, this and that, I go, you know what? How does get fucked sound? I am just who I am. So what would you you either like it or you don't, because the thing is, Bistro Rex is across the road. And then Neil Perry is down the road as well. So if you don't like the way I run my business, guess what? Najee, so what piece of kitchen or life advice would you like to pass on to our next guest? Uh I don't want to pass on advice to anyone because you just got to be yourself because everyone's so different. Your DNA, I can't even pass on advice to you guys, even though they do come in the form of a fortune cookie tonight. So can the staff please give everyone a fortune cookie? But um, advice-wise, what's your legacy in life? What's your legacy? Like, what how do you want to be remembered? That's my advice. Like, literally, like, what do you get to lay down? Take risks. I mean, I don't want to sound daggy, like, be your authentic self, blah, all that. It's just what is your true legacy in life? So I have one final question for you, Naj. Um, in her poem, British Poet and Refugee Warsun Shire, writes, No one leaves home unless home is a mouthful of sharks. You've lived across countries, cultures, and chapters. What does home mean to you? Well, that's the most exhilarating thing about life, isn't it? It's like you cross the ocean and all these sharks were trying to bite you, and yet they didn't, and you beat them. That's been my life. Literally, it's like, my god, do I have to come? I mean, if one more cunt gets in my way, I'm just gonna. It's like just leave me alone. Like, I'm I've done good. Ladies and gentlemen, a huge round of applause for our Lady of the Frost, 92. That's it for this episode of Three Food Memories. Be sure to spread the plated love and check out our hundred-plus back episodes. You can catch them on YouTube as well. Just search for Three Food Memories. For all things TFM, head to the socials at Free Food Memories and at Savasavis. For more info, send us a message, head to threefoodmemories.com. Three Food Memories is produced and edited by Lauren McQuer with original music by Russell Torrance. Nastaka La Philly, and bye for now. Thank you for listening to this podcast. Don't forget to like for the time.