Step Inside Empress by Boon for Modern Cantonese in a Historic Banquet Hall

Step Inside Empress by Boon for Modern Cantonese in a Historic Banquet Hall


The highly anticipated Empress by Boon opens this Friday, June 18, taking over the historic Empress of China banquet hall. More than two years in the making, the revival of the space as a modern Cantonese restaurant focussing on Californian ingredients is the first solo project for chef Ho Chee Boon, who chased Michelin stars around the world for 30 years as the executive chef at global hotspot empire Hakkasan. With a restored interior washed in blues and updated with modern leather and glass, while keeping the original antique woodwork, it’s altogether one of the most ambitious and exciting new restaurant openings of the last 18 months.To get more news about last empress of china wanrong, you can visit shine news official website.

The Empress of China reigned as a banquet hall for nearly half a century. The building was constructed in the 1960s, and the restaurant first opened in the top two stories in 1966, serving elegant Cantonese food with a view over Portsmouth Square. The original Empress was carpeted in emerald green and filled with white tablecloths, wooden lattices, and ornate chandeliers. It served as a special occasion destination, from wedding celebrations to red-egg ceremonies — jacket and tie required — for generations of San Franciscans. The restaurant shuttered in 2014, when the building was sold to new owners, who first intended to put in tech offices, to the outrage of the neighborhood.

The Empress will remain a restaurant, but neighborhood concerns are still simmering: Historic Chinese banquet halls have largely shuttered in Chinatown, and several have been replaced by upscale restaurants, fueling fears of gentrification. Mister Jiu’s took over the former Four Seas to serve Michelin-starred Chinese-American cuisine in 2016, and China Live moved into Gold Mountain to open that massive multi-level dining emporium in 2017. Compounding that, Empress by Boon is opening at a time when the neighborhood is coming out of a prolonged setback as a result of both the pandemic and the racist reaction unleashed over the last 15 months, leading to a striking rise in AAPI hate crimes.

Speaking with Boon about the feelings of the neighborhood, the chef now tells Eater SF: “To tell you the truth, I say everything from my heart, and the truth is that I didn’t know about a problem. I only knew about it … after many months.” Boon originally grew up in Malaysia, but has cooked Cantonese food for 30 years, traveling the world with the Hakkasan group, known for its luxury restaurants and nightclubs from London to Vegas. He’s opened more than 15 restaurants for the chain, including the dimly lit, clubby San Francisco location in 2013, which closed permanently during the pandemic.

“I’m here to do something good for Chinatown, actually, that was my intent … ” Boon says. But “now that we’re opening, I have to prove that we’ll be doing something good for Chinatown.” He hopes to attract more business to San Francisco Chinatown as the city reopens and travelers return — especially because the neighborhood lost significant visitors and dollars during the pandemic, in part due to heightened xenophobia.