Elizabeth Truong’s newest restaurant in Los Gatos was inspired by her firstborn child’s favorite foods growing up, so she designed her first eatery’s menu around her youngest’s tastes.
Truong operates both Breaking Dawn, which opened for brunch in February, and First Born, which began full dinner service on Aug. 17, at Pizza Chicago’s old location at 160 W. Main St. She says she wanted to honor her children, Brandon, 28, and Chloe, 17, with the restaurants.
“I think when you start a company, you’re always motivated by something – a reason, a why,” Truong adds. “And I think for me, they are my why.”
At First Born, an Asian fusion restaurant, “sticky fingers” or chicken wings are a nod to Brandon’s high school football game and a nod to his favorite food. The image of the pig in Breaking Dawn’s logo is an homage to Chloe’s birth year, which was the year of the Golden Pig in the Chinese zodiac.
Guests at either restaurant might even have Chloe and Brandon as hostesses, bringing food to tables and doing all the other odd jobs that come with owning a restaurant with your mother. That experience isn’t far removed from that of Truong, who practically grew up at the now-closed Mai’s, her family’s restaurant in downtown San Jose, and whose first job was peeling carrots in a kitchen.
The flavors on Truong’s menus are inspired by her Vietnamese heritage, her children and her chefs, who come from diverse backgrounds – all of which contribute to the theme of pan-Asian fusion cuisine.
But the menus at First Born and Breaking Dawn also include a little bit of Truong. She says that as a young mother, when she was considering what to cook for her children, she often only cooked the dishes she knew her children would like.
“I think the embodiment you see here is simply the joy of a mother seeing her children enjoying the things she makes for them,” she says.
Truong isn’t afraid to try new things in her restaurants either. BurgerBots, another of her many projects, will allow customers to order burgers from a kiosk at First Born later this year and then watch a machine assemble the dish before their eyes.
Truong’s main goal is to provide her customers and chefs with the personal touch that is so important in the restaurant business, and she says BurgerBots will not detract from that.
“I think when you come into a restaurant, you want a chef to prepare your food and you want people to serve your food, and I’m not taking that away from you,” she said. “The only thing I’m taking away is a process that most chefs don’t want to do. … I’ve developed automation that shows that people and automation can work together and not take jobs away, but still improve them.”
First Born is open daily except Mondays from 5-9 p.m. at 160 W. Main St. For more information, visit firstbornlosgatos.com.
Breaking Dawn serves brunch Tuesday through Sunday, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. For more information, visit https://www.breakingdawnbrunch.com.
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