Q & A with Annisa's Anita Lo

Opening your own restaurant is a daunting task in and of itself, but Anita Lo had to open Annisa twice.  Last year, a fire destroyed her thriving West Village eatery.  And just a few months earlier, she closed Bar-Q, another one of her restaurants.  Instead of calling it a day, she started over again and rebuilt Annisa from the ground up.  She and her partner even hired a feng shui consultant to clear the “bad energy” in the space.  Second time around, Annisa’s just as successful and beloved by New Yorkers.  She’s revived her now-classic, foie gras soup dumplings and miso-marinated sable in a bonito broth and added seasonal newcomers, like softshell crabs with summer squash, lardo and sea urchin.  Following her appearance on Top Chef Masters, she says she’s still suffering from “Post-Traumatic Top Chef disorder” and next time around, she’d rather be a judge.    

Single/Married/Divorced?  
Single

Where were you born?
Detroit, Michigan

What are fondest food memories from childhood?
There are so many: eating rambutans off the tree at my aunt’s house in Malaysia, eating steamer clams and lobster on Cape Cod, my nanny’s chicken paprikash…my mother’s noodles…

What was your first job in food and what did you learn?
Canapes at Bouley.  I developed basic knife skills in that station and learned about ingredients, especially produce.  We were using a lot of local vegetables and David liked to highlight their purity.

What did you want to be when you grew up?
A concert pianist, but I lacked the drive and the talent.

Who are your culinary influences?
David Waltuck, David Bouley, my mother…

How would you describe your cooking style?    
Contemporary American—upscale and adventurous

Your dishes reflect so many vastly different cultures and cuisines.  What’s your unique approach to integrating them and getting inspiration from them?  Are they any cuisines that don’t inspire you or don’t pair well on a plate?
I grew up with so many different cuisines and cultures, so on some level this is just my identity; integrating cultural influences comes naturally.  If you think about it long enough, you should be able to mix any cuisine.  Mongolian cooking, or what I saw of it, wasn’t that inspirational for me, but some of the raw ingredients from that country were amazing.

What’s your favorite cuisine?
Don’t have one, and couldn’t live without diversity.

Prior to Top Chef Masters, you were one of the more low profile chefs.  What was that tv and celebrity chef experience like for you?
It was incredible to cook with all those chefs, and especially to hear the stories from the older generation.  And competing for charity made it a much more positive experience.  But some of the challenges were intense, and I think we all have post-traumatic Top Chef disorder as a result 😉

Is that something you want to do more of?  
I’d rather be a judge, but I’d certainly go to bat for charity again.

You must’ve been devastated when there was a fire in Annisa last year.  Did not reopening ever cross your mind?    
There were three occasions when we thought we had lost the restaurant for good.  Our lease was expiring, so we couldn’t rebuild without resigning, and that was a hellish rollercoaster.  

What inspired you to hire a feng shui consultant for Annisa and what did she suggest? Which of her ideas did you implement and were there any that you decided not to use?
Feng shui wasn’t my idea.  We had had such bad luck in the past year, that my partner Jennifer thought we should have the space cleared.  I figured it couldn’t hurt.  I’m pretty sure we did everything the consultant suggested.  And now everyone comments about how great it feels in here.

What’s the most difficult part about opening a restaurant?   And re-opening the same one?
Its difficult all around, so its hard to choose.  Money?  Staffing?  We were lucky that almost all of our staff came back after we were closed for 9 months.

How is the recently opened Annisa different from the original outpost? And how are the two restaurants similar?
Its in the same spot, and at the core the same restaurant.  The layout is the same, but we got nicer chairs, and we warmed the space up a bit by introducing some darker, walnut tones.  We have a paneled wall to absorb sound, and more floral decoration.  

What’s your favorite dish on the menu right now? Least favorite?
I stand behind everything on the menu, or I wouldn’t put it on.  I really like the Spanish Mackerel right now—I’m getting gorgeous heirloom tomatoes from Early Girl Farm right now.  I also love the softshell crab with summer squash, lardo and sea urchin; it won’t be around much longer as the season is ending but I love those flavors and the summer squashes are beautiful—I get them from Bodhitree Farm.

You’ve been involved in both fine dining and casual ventures.  Do you have a preference for one style?
I prefer fine dining for its complexity and detail, but I equally love working on new concepts– casual as well.

What obstacles have you faced, as a woman, in the kitchen?
It wasn’t easy working in France.  There were some chefs there that were outwardly  opposed to having women in the kitchen.  And there’s still a lot of subtle gender bias everywhere; we all have to keep questioning how we add to it.

Which female chefs do you admire the most?
Anne Sophie Pic for her 3 michelin stars.  Martha Stewart for building an incredible empire.  My friend, April Bloomfield for consistently craveable dishes in such high volume.

What’s the one cooking tool you can’t do without?
I love my tasting spoon.

Any plans to open additional restaurants?
For now I’m focusing on annisa, but I would love to open other restaurants in the future with the staff that has stuck by me at annisa.

We heard you’re working on a cookbook.    Tell us a little about it.
It is a classic collection of recipes celebrating multiculturalism and contemporary American cuisine.  Charlotte Druckman is helping me write it and Stewart, Tabori and Chang is the publisher.  If all goes well, it should come out in the fall of 2011.

Annisa
Address: 13 Barrow St., nr 4th St.
Phone: (212)741-6699