SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Billy Ngo, a Sacramento chef and restauranteur who's perhaps best known as the co-owner of Kru Contemporary Japanese Cuisine, is celebrating a night that will go down in history.
He attended the James Beard Awards in Chicago Monday alongside friends and family as a finalist for the title of Best California Chef. The James Beard Awards are considered the Oscars of the culinary world.
The Best California Chef award went to Lord Maynard Llera of Kuya Lord in Los Angeles, but Ngo is still celebrating a big win as the third chef in Sacramento to make it to the semifinals and the only one to make it to the finals.
Despite his accomplishments, Ngo describes his journey to become a chef as "coincidental."
A long journey and an unexpected path
Ngo's story starts in a refugee camp in Hong Kong, where he was born. His mother was pregnant with him during the Vietnam War, and his family, like thousands of others, escaped to Hong Kong from Vietnam by boat in fear of persecution by the new Communist government following the Fall of Saigon.
Just under a year later, Ngo's family resettled in the United States. It's a part of his own history Ngo says is important to share.
"You need to know where you're from to get to where you want to be," Ngo said.
As a child growing up in Sacramento's Little Saigon, Ngo observed as his parents worked at restaurants and even opened up their own on Folsom Boulevard. It was not work by choice, but by need.
"They couldn't speak English. They didn't have any other skillsets being in the United States at an older age," Ngo said.
It was also why Ngo's parents themselves never expected their son to ever work in one.
"They were pretty much saying I can do whatever I want, why would you want to work in a restaurant?" Ngo recalled.
But Ngo said he didn't always want to be a chef. He got his work permit during high school and started off as a busboy and dishwasher at one of Sacramento's oldest Japanese restaurants at the time, Fuji.
"We grew up really poor, but my parents provided the best they could for me. But whatever I wanted, I realized I have to go out and get it, so I started working early," Ngo said.
Ngo worked his way up to the sushi bar at Fuji before trading in the job for one at Mikuni Sushi in Roseville.
"I think going there and working there was when it kind of clicked for me, like, this is fun, this is cool. I want to do this," Ngo said.
He would go on to study at Sacramento City College but drop out to take his passion more seriously. He worked at various restaurants, absorbing as much information as he could before going to California Culinary Academy in San Francisco to hone his culinary skills.
On May 9, 2005, Ngo opened up Kru Contemporary Japanese Cuisine days before he turned 24.
"We call it Contemporary Japanese Cuisine because we stay very, very authentic to the sushi with the rice, with the fish. Majority of our fish is flown in from Japan. But what makes us different, contemporary, is the flavor profiles. The types of food I grew up eating, we incorporate that into the small plates and the entrees," Ngo said.
Today, he's also the owner of Kodaiko Ramen & Bar, Fish Face Poke Bar and Healthy Hounds Kitchen.
James Beard Award nomination
Ngo was still asleep when he woke up to multiple text notifications on his phone. It was an early Wednesday morning in January.
"I was like, 'Who's texting me this early? Why are so many people texting me?' And then I finally look and I see 'Congratulations,'" Ngo said.
He had just been named as a semifinalist for Best California Chef from the James Beard Awards. It was a recognition Ngo never anticipated.
"This is one of the most prestigious awards to get along with a Michelin star. I'm still in shock because this is something you dream of but you don't know how you can (make it happen). I don't know how you even get nominated, I never really looked into it," Ngo said.
It was "a dream come true" for Ngo, but also a big step forward for the restaurant industry in Sacramento overall.
"Sacramento finally made it to the Michelin Guide list recently in 2019 and it's been so long, you know," Ngo said. "I knew something was going to happen in Sacramento eventually and I wanted to be part of it when that whole chain — this whole food scene, this bar scene, this whole culture here — changed completely in the last 15, 20 years."
Looking to the future
Even with his extensive list of experience and restaurants under his belt, Ngo has no plans of slowing down. His next passion project, expected to open this fall, is a restaurant inspired by his late mother who died from cancer.
"This is a way for me to keep her name alive," Ngo said with a smile. "Her maiden name was Mai Chu, and we're calling (the restaurant) Chu Mai, putting her last name first."
The restaurant will serve as a place to "celebrate life, family and traditions through food, drink and hospitality," according to the restaurant website — a proper homage to his mother.
"All my restaurants are fish or Japanese-oriented because the first restaurant job I had was at a Japanese restaurant. But that's not the food I grew up eating — Chinese, Vietnamese," Ngo said. "This restaurant is actually the flavors and flavor profiles of food that I grew up with, but done in a new way where people like me... first generation, second generation Asian Americans, can eat it and the flavors will be authentic enough to remind them of (what) they had at home."
It's a project Ngo knows his mother would be smiling down on - "I think she'd be really happy, I think she'd be proud."
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