A conversation with Stevenson Su – Horizon Dining and District 8
Having opened up 3 years ago, Horizon Dining has been fulfilling their quest in bringing various South-East Asian cuisine to their diners. Located in the Diggers Club in Canley Vale, an area already absolutely spoilt for Vietnamese and Chinese cuisine, Executive Chef Stevenson Su and his band of culturally-specialised chefs have continued to raise the bar of culinary excellence by delivering delicious Chinese, Malaysian, Thai and Vietnamese (to name a few) dishes all in the same location.
Last October, Horizon Dining (and District 8) just celebrated their 3rd birthday, and as an act of support for the community given the challenges of COVID-19 this year, they decided to do a 30% off promotion of all meals from Monday to Friday (now extended through the entire month of November). I caught up with Chef Stevenson to find out more about him, Horizon Dining and what their experience was like during the COVID-19 pandemic.
D: “So tell me about yourself!”
Stevenson: “Me! I started about 3 years ago. So that’s why we’re having our 3 year anniversary. So before this, there was nothing here. This place is like my baby – lots of hard work and love was put into this place. Before I came here, I was working in Chinatown for about 4 years in a 500-seat restaurant. Before that, I was working at a 5-star hotel in the Caribbean and in my native country of China prior to that. My grandfather was a chef. I actually have no talent for study. So, I decided I was going to be a chef!”
Stevenson has a bit of a chuckle here as he later discusses that his father wanted him to be a doctor!
D: “That’s interesting for a Chinese chef, what made you go to the Caribbean?”
Stevenson: “I went there for 13 months, and it was a really exciting experience for me. You see lots of travellers and celebrities.”
D: “Yummy. Lots of seafood right?”
Stevenson: “Yeah! Lots of seafood but the problem is that the local people actually don’t like seafood. The locals love eating things like jerk chicken, chips and other fried stuff. So the seafood available there was quite cheap because it wasn’t really in demand by the locals.”
“Going back further, I was working in Shanghai for about 10 years which is a very long time. I worked with French chefs, Chinese chefs and even Australian chefs. I was working in a very western town in Shanghai and that’s where I met an Australian chef who brought me over to Australia.”
D: “What encouraged you to come to Australia?”
Stevenson: “The Australian chef that I met in Shanghai actually brought me over here. We worked together for 3-4 years and realised that I was a very helpful person. So he brought me over here.”
D: “What did you do when you first came to Australia?”
Stevenson: “I actually started working in King’s Cross at a place called Concrete Blonde. They were undergoing expensive renovations at the time so that was exciting to be part of something new.”
“I was in China during the SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) outbreak in 2002. Now, in 2020 we’re experiencing a similar thing with COVID-19. So it’s been challenging, I’ve been through two pandemics.”
D: “Wow. That must’ve been really interesting to go through two challenging pandemics. Did that really help you and your restaurant to prepare for coronavirus?”
Stevenson: “Yeah SARS and Coronavirus are pretty similar anyways – I was pretty calm when coronavirus hit. We had to wear facemasks, sanitise the air, kitchen and basically everywhere. Back when the SARS outbreak happened, no one wanted to go to the restaurants. I was lucky enough to work for a hotel so we could survive. So when Coronavirus hit us, our first reaction to the lockdowns was to immediately switch to takeaway. We have pretty regular and loyal customers here so we offered a 10% discount offer for takeaway if they came here and picked up – this was designed to help us keep our labour here.”
“We had a reduced menu because we had limited staff anyways. For Mother’s day, our revenue from the takeaway set menus was similar to normal sit-down service. That was surprising and actually a really long day. We were cooking from non-stop from 10 am – 11 pm, we had no break at all! But the good thing about takeaway is that we know beforehand how much to plan and prepare beforehand.”
“We’ve kept 10% off for takeaway as a return to our customers. A lot of people around here have been struggling financially so we’ve wanted to help people by bringing the price down a bit. So for October, and we’re thinking about November, we’ve decided to do 30% off dine-in for weekdays. You save big money.”
D: “That’s really nice of you guys. How are you guys going currently?”
Stevenson: “Yeah we’re going okay. We’re limited in our amount of dine-in customers obviously due to the restrictions. But our first priority is maintaining the health to our customers – that’s what matters to us right now. I mean even with the restrictions, lunch and dinner it’s been pretty busy so it’s going okay.”
D: “How did you start this place up?”
Stevenson: “That was a hustle. The design for this place was to have 8 different outlets. As you can see, we have 8 different sections where we’ve got the juice bar, the bakery and the dumpling section for example. We wanted to do all different types of cuisines. We wanted chefs to cook food that was specific to their own culture – Thai chefs cooking Thai food and Malaysian chefs cooking Malaysian food. Recruitment-wise, that was challenging but we managed to filter it down to the chefs we could count on to cook the various cuisines.”
“We’ve had our menu now for the last couple of years now. Nothing much changes except for the seasonal aspects. It’s been pretty stable for us and it’s part of our mantra of ‘doing the basics well and people will come’ so it’s been good for us. We’re pretty stable now. Back 3 years ago I could never just casually sit down and chat to you. There was always something happening that I had to look after. Nowadays, the guys are solid and I can leave things to them. I like to look after my guys because we have to take care of them as well. What’s the saying? You have to give to receive! And that’s why these guys are reliable for us.”
D: “That would’ve been reassuring for you knowing you have such reliable guys during challenging periods right?”
Stevenson: “Definitely! During coronavirus, we had to give shifts to everyone so they could survive. We had a lot of students that weren’t on JobKeeper so we had to make sure that we were looking after them and help them survive. You know? You have to think about what are they going to do? What are we going to do to help them?
“It’s hard but you just have to fight through until everything returns to normal I suppose. We’re going to look back one day and it’s honestly something you could write a book about.”
D: “Yeah that’s a challenge that’s been faced by man restaurants I’ve talked to. A lot of these restaurants have people from overseas that were left stranded here without any government support. A lot of places are just fighting to keep going and aren’t making money”
Stevenson: “Yes that’s right. Look even us we aren’t even making much on our margins at the moment. Especially with this 30% off deal that we are doing. I don’t think we are making much money right now but that isn’t the point. If 30% off can get people through the door it means we are busy and it means people are able to work.”
“The Government also helped us a lot and the club (Diggers Club) have assisted us. We’ve been fortunate. We are busy and people are still employed so we’re happy to be where we’re at.”
“I’ve tried to make everyone happy. Hopefully, they are. I know it’s busy but it’s a good kind of busy. It’s one of the best feelings finishing a shift and having a beer with my guys. They’re tired but they’re smiling. So I know they’re happy.”
Stevenson smiles as he ponders on this and it’s a lovely moment. As I understand and can certainly relate, that nothing is better than work comradery when going through tough challenges.
D: “What’s your favourite thing on the menu?”
Stevenson: “My favourite thing! For yum cha I’d say my favourite things on the menu are the meats and organs in the yum cha menu. I like the tripe, bible tripe, chicken feet and the pork ribs. Things like bible tripe, when you cook it right the flavours are very intense and it’s delicious. I’ve seen a lot of Westerners come to accept these types of meats. They’re getting into chicken feet and tripe because they’re seeing everyone eating it and enjoying it. So that’s been really good to see that more people are accepting foods we (people of Asian descent) find normal and seeing that ‘multicultural’ aspect really come to the fore. Hopefully one day it just becomes part of the normal Aussie culture to have yum cha.”
D: “What’s your favourite thing on the dinner menu?”
Stevenson: “Oh I’m a chef so I really like the simple stuff. We usually just have a congee or a noodle after work. We don’t have the heavy stuff. But lately lobster has been cheap so we’ll share a 3-4kg lobster. Have it as sashimi and cooked with salt and pepper – so good!”
D: “If you weren’t a chef, what would you be doing?”
Stevenson: “Oh, my father was a doctor so he always pushed me to be a doctor! But I had no interest at all to give medication or to use needles. My dad had a clinic at home so as a kid I always hated seeing needles so I was like ‘no thanks’. I rather make something to eat and give people food so they’re happy. As a doctor, you often deal with sick people and people that are sad. So I prefer cooking food and seeing their faces as they eat, it’s a much happier experience – most of the time!”
The interview ends there and I share a meal of yum cha with Stevenson. A very interesting insight with someone who’s had to face the hospitality struggle of not one but two pandemics! Horizon Dining’s 30% off deal still goes on for the rest of November (on week-days) so get in while you can so you can enjoy some of the most delicious South-East Asian cuisines.