THE AN FAMILY

This past year, the Los Angeles food scene was decidedly livened up by the opening of Crustacean. 
            With its unforgettable interior (complete with koi pond) and one-of-a-kind Vietnamese/French Colonial food, Crustacean has won a loyal clientele in a short time. 
            “Business is going very, very well,” says Elizabeth An, the restaurant’s owner, and daughter of executive chef Helene An. “Dinner is phenomenal, and we’ve introduced a wonderful entertainment night on Wednesdays, featuring jazz music. 
            “Also, we’re featuring Martini Madness and Asian tapas sampling, which has really developed the bar and lounge business. We’ve made all the numbers we’ve wanted to make and more so. We’re still working on lunches—it’s not as busy as I’d like it to be—but I think with the opening of the patio, we should be attracting more customers for lunch.” 
            Such success is the result of a lot of hard work, and was never guaranteed.
            When Helene, her husband Danny, and their daughters Elizabeth, Hannah, and Monique, left Saigon after the Communist takeover in 1975, they left behind a life of royal privilege for an uncertain future.
            Growing up in a wealthy, influential family that ruled over the Tuyen Quang province in North Vietnam, Helene and her family lived a privileged life of prominence and prestige. Three chefs—French, Chinese, and Vietnamese—worked their craft in the family’s kitchen, and it was not unique to entertain more than 300 people at a time.
            “Watching all the chefs,” Elizabeth says, “my mother and grandmother would think, “What can we create next for the same guest who had just been here a week before—something he did not have?” It was in order to keep the honor of our tradition that was so important to our culture, and to keep the respect of ‘What a wonderful wife and daughter-in-law this man has!’”
            She recalls the stories with amusement and appreciation. 
            “My grandfather was a politician and entertained a lot,” she says. “On a regular basis, grandfather would have 15 to 20 people over. He’d just bring them home unannounced. In those days it was very common, and grandmother had to accommodate that, and, being a daughter-in-law, that was a big part of my mother’s role: watching things, how they fell together, how to set up a menu, how to be creative, how to be organized.” 
            The fine art of superior entertaining rubbed off on Helene. Her mother, Diana, had come to San Francisco previously, and bought a small Italian restaurant. She renamed the location Thanh Long, and soon after arriving in America, Helene was putting her culinary skills to use. 
            “Helene took all the traditions and all she knew about food and refined the business and kitchen aspects,” says Elizabeth.
            Success built upon success, and in 1991, the Ans opened another restaurant in San Francisco: the first Crustacean.
            “After we had grown up, and done our own things, I basically took Helene and grandmother’s restaurant and contemporized it,” says Elizabeth. “But the food is all mom’s.” 
            Helene takes extraordinary pride in her culinary creations. For her, they represent far more than just good food. They represent her legacy. 
            “Some parents leave their children wealth, or money, or a dowry,” says Elizabeth. “My mom says, “What I’m leaving to you girls is my culinary traditions and the heritage that I grew up with.” She’s leaving us an inheritance, but what we do with it is all up to us.” 
            Adds Helene, “Our family has created our own recipes, and I want to keep the family closer through our traditions. I want to save something just for my children, and if they are smart, they will be able to build on the tradition.”
            One of the unique ways that Helene protects her legacy is through her secret kitchen, an entirely separate area in the restaurant that only she and a select few have access to. 
            “We’ve split the kitchen in half, and boxed out one part of it in sheet metal,” explains Elizabeth. “One side is open, with different chefs running through, but the secret kitchen is boxed out. No one is allowed in except mother and other family members: myself (she’s training me), my aunt, and a cousin.”
            The secret kitchen allows Helene to prepare her special dishes in total privacy, without fear of her treasured recipes leaking out to other restaurants. 
            “We have four recipes unique to the Ans, that have belonged to us for generations,” says Elizabeth. “The An garlic noodles, roasted crab, a lobster dish, and the royal tiger prawns. And only the four people allowed in the secret kitchen know these dishes. 
            “It’s my mother’s pride in the food. If she saw another roasted crab in another restaurant, calling it roasted crab and making it completely different than the way it should be done, it would upset her.”
            It is this devotion to the integrity of her food that sets Helene and Crustacean apart from the myriad other cookie-cutter restaurants that dot the landscape.
            “These dishes belong to the An family, and were served to the King of the An family,” says Elizabeth. “We don’t think about it much, but there’s culinary espionage, and if you go to a lot of restaurants, you know that when one thing hits, the rest go out and copy it.
            “Certain things should remain unique, certain dishes should remain what they are, and since she cares so much and has so much pride about her food, she created the secret kitchen because she wanted the dishes to be the way they should be, not made by someone else, who would destroy the dishes’ integrity.” 
            And Helene and her daughters share a mutual appreciation for that integrity. 
            “My mother grew up in a household where food was really important,” says Elizabeth, “where the wealth of a woman in the happiness of her family and in how she orchestrates the house and makes sure everything is happy when the guests visit the home.
            “You keep a customer with uniqueness and food, and you create your own niche.” 
            Adds Helene, “They come to you because they’re happy.” 
            Although the food is Helene’s arena (“Mom is the brain behind the kitchen,” says Elizabeth), her daughter has spent a lot of time learning the business from every angle.
            “I do the front of the house,” says Elizabeth. “I do the concept and development, and the interior design aspects. I love to create the restaurant design. It’s a passion with me. I also do the public relations and marketing.”
            And, although she has a degree in management and finance, it hasn’t stopped her from doing a few of the less glamorous jobs. 
            “In the earlier days, Mom had me working as a dishwasher,” says Elizabeth. “And I spent a lot of time in the kitchen cutting vegetables. When you’re the boss’s daughter, you don’t get it any easier.”
            And while she knows all the secret kitchen recipes by heart, Elizabeth has turned her attention to managing the operations of all three of the An’s restaurants. Furthermore, there are plans to open even more.
            “We’re expanding,” says Elizabeth. “By the end of the year, we plan to have a restaurant in Newport Beach, and we’re looking at several other locations.”
            As for now, though the Ans have enough to handle with the success of their Beverly Hills location. Business is flourishing with no signs of letting up. 
            And that’s no secret. 
                                                                                 --PETER LEFEVRE