It may come as a surprise to most Bristolians to discover that Hao Wei, the most highly-rated Chinese restaurant in Bristol, is not in the city centre or in any of the foodie pockets further afield. If you want to sample Chinese cuisine that's ranked number one on TripAdvisor - praised as the "best Chinese restaurant in the UK" and a "hidden gem" - you'll need to head out to Cheswick, a modern "village" development that sits on the South Gloucestershire and Bristol border.
It was here that seven years ago, Tac Vien, a property developer who lives nearby, spotted a retail unit he thought would make an excellent restaurant. He said: "I drove past it every day, and I thought 'this is a golden opportunity' because there are many residents nearby, over 2,000 houses. There was a lot of buzz around the area, so I thought it'd be good to get a foot in the door at the start of the development."
Although Tac's career wasn't in hospitality (Hao Wei was his first restaurant), he had ample experience in the business, from growing up in a family of chefs and being a pot washer as a teenager. He said: "We love food. I grew up with chefs in the family. My father is a chef, and my brothers are. So I was a good cook, but I'm not up to their level."
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Three of Tac's brothers work in the kitchen at Hao Wei, and the unique combination of their skills and experience is partly what he credits with the restaurant's success. He said: "We are blessed with our staff. Each person has got their own amazing ingredients (that they are experts in) because one's got a sweet and sour sauce, one's got a satay sauce, and when they combine, I say, they make magic because they are each the top of their field at certain things but then they will bring each other up to a certain level when they're in the kitchen together."
Hao Wei's chefs put together a menu with all the favourites that people expect to find alongside dishes they may not have seen before. Tac said: "What we eat at home sometimes is different to what is put out there in Chinese restaurants that is more suited for Western tastes. So what I've tried to introduce, like with our Family Wednesday, is where we're serving food we cook at home."
While the restaurant, open for dinner Tuesday - Sunday and lunch Thursday - Sunday, runs special menus on occasions such as Lunar New Year and Valentine's Day, Family Wednesdays is a weekly special where customers are given the opportunity to try traditional Chinese home-cooked food that the chef's cook based on the fresh ingredients available that day.
Tac may not be a chef, but his enthusiasm for good food is evident when he describes some of his favourite dishes on the menu. He said: "The crispy lamb starters are amazing, and we have a really thinly sliced ribeye on a bok choy base and then sauce on top cooking the rib eye, so it's nice and tender. The Vietnamese spring rolls are great, too, and the steamed seabass with lemon chilli sauce is a very nice dish.
"There is a dish called golden king prawns -it's one of my favourites. It's a bit of a marmite dish, but if you love it, your love it. And the spicy chips are very popular. The chefs put secret herbs in there, it's very moreish. And you have to try the runny egg-fried rice too, it's special fried rice, but then there's a runny egg on top of it. When you break into the egg, it melts into the rice, and you eat it. It's just lovely."
Tac says that having helpful and friendly front-of-house staff that can recommend dishes to patrons is crucial to the restaurant's success and that if there's a dish you can't see on the menu that you can describe, he says the chefs will try and recreate it for you.
Because they cook their dishes from scratch, Tac says Hao Wei can cater to dietary needs to an uncommon extent. He said: "No-one should be left behind if they want to enjoy Chinese food. So we have a lot of gluten-free dishes. The food is cooked fresh to suit the customer, so if they have an egg allergy, dairy allergy or something like that, we can alter the products. We do halal chicken as well. So we try to include everybody. Just because you have a peanut allergy or just because you're celiac doesn't mean you can't have Chinese."
When eating out in Bristol, where does the owner of one of the city's most highly-rated restaurants like to head to? As a steak fan, he recommends Pasture and Mugshot, as well as Jean's Bistro and Wusar on Gloucester Road.
Speaking about the struggles that many in the hospitality industry across Bristol are experiencing at the moment with increasing overheads and customers with less disposable income, Tac said: "We try to remain as competitive to maintain our low prices. We were forced to take the tough decision to increase our prices only about three or four months ago because we just cannot cope with the cost of living, the cost of wages going up, the cost of gas and electricity, not to mention the taxman as well. We're getting squeezed from left, right and centre.
"I expect it will be very tough this year for us, so it's a scary time. But everyone, so far, is pretty supportive. And they understand what's happening."
Although Tac says there's not much-passing trade in front of the restaurant, he says he's lucky to have a large regular local customer base who he wants to experience the highest quality food when they decide to eat out, even if it's not as frequently as they maybe did previously. He said: "We see them as friends rather than customers."
We're curious if that customer base extends to Jack Whitehall, who gave Hao Wei a viral moment in 2017 when he
saying: "In Bristol might go to this restaurant. It's either Chinese, or Geordie can't work it out." We asked if Whitehall ever took up Hao Wei's offer to drop in next time he was in Bristol, to which Tac replied: "lol, no."
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