The Culinary Art of Susur Lee10 min read

“We took a year and travelled from Southeast Asia to the Middle East, from the Middle East to Europe, and came back to North America. That was my learning … learning different cultures, learning about religion, learning about the people, and food and how they live.” He devoured that knowledge in whatever form it took. “When I was in Europe, it was just like having a food tour. It wasn’t eating in Michelin-style restaurants. It was just observing what was in the windows, going to small stores, cheap places, and with those things I could pick up the flavours and tastes.” Upon arriving in Canada, however, he faced the typical immigrant’s Catch-22: every employer asks for “Canadian experience,” so Lee was forced to start all over again, at the bottom, accepting as little as $4.25 an hour, and at one point, working three jobs a day to help his wife get through graduate school. He gradually worked his way back up the ranks and was hired as chef of “Le Connoisseur” in 1983 when Marilou was offered a professorship in Hong Kong. She accepted and they decided they would move back. Tragedy struck, however, when Marilou decided to fly on her own a little earlier to make the start of the school year. She was a passenger on the ill-fated Korean Airlines Flight 007 from Seoul to Hong Kong, which drifted into Soviet airspace and was shot down by their jet fighters. Lee was devastated. He floundered for a time, but chose not to return to Hong Kong. Instead, he immersed himself in his work.

Lee went on to become chef at the hip bistro “Peter Pan” in a trendy part of Toronto’s Queen Street West. The bistro’s laid-back Jamaican owners gave him free reign to cook whatever he wanted, and he thrived in that environment, finding the bohemian customers highly receptive to his imaginative offerings. It was there that he met Brenda Bent, a waitress and fashion designer from Winnipeg. While they didn’t hit it off right away—she was too punk for him, while she thought he was gay—they became a couple and eventually married in 1987. That year, he also opened his own restaurant called “Lotus”. He explains, “I always knew I had to do my own thing. Maybe it’s an Asian thing, I wanted to have my own business.” It was a small 12-table establishment further west along Queen Street, but not too far from Chinatown and Kensington Market. This allowed Lee to find fresh and culturally diverse ingredients, and to create a different menu on a nightly basis; this is when he truly made his mark with his unique approach to Asian cuisine—but Lee admits to disliking the term, “Asian Fusion.” Almost immediately, it was a smash success. As the accolades poured in, clients booked months in advance for a seating. Dining at his restaurant became an event.

“But in my cooking, I’m still very old school in many ways. I don’t do anything scientific, bubbles, foams, and all that. It’s all based on very good taste. That’s very important. Where does it come from? And how do you merge that new cuisine together? It has to have roots.”

His fame soon spread beyond Canada’s borders. Offers came in from hotels and restaurants around the world, but Lee resisted so he could be with his family. After a decade of running “Lotus”, he needed a change, and decided in 1997 to accept a consulting position with the Tung Lok Group of restaurants in Singapore. The job only required about five hours a day, which allowed him to spend much more time with his wife and sons. He also found the experience revitalizing, bringing him closer to his Asian roots. After three years, he was ready to return to Toronto on a grander scale. In 2000, he opened “Susur” to rave reviews. This is where he first pioneered his acclaimed reverse tasting menu, in which courses progressed from heaviest to lightest, and where dining partners were expected to choose different orders and share. He followed up with its more casual and affordable neighbour, “Lee,” in 2004. “Susur” was closed in early 2008 so he could focus on launching the New York restaurant, “Shang,” but reopened briefly as the European-themed “Madeline’s,” named after his mother. Lee had the misfortune of opening “Shang” just as the economic downturn struck, but he was undeterred, opening “Zentan” last year in Washington D.C. and “Chinois” by Susur Lee earlier this year in Singapore. Lee is conscious of balancing his creative needs with the business side of things. He feels that “more business means you can have more creativity. Yes, sometimes you’ll fail but you always have to take those risks. We are performers. We have to perform. We are entertainers, in many ways.”

Over the years, his approach has come to rely less on experimentation in favour of a more conceptual approach. As wildly inventive as his dishes often are, they are always grounded in tradition. “China, Asia—anywhere in that part of the world has so much to share with the West. Of course, I always keep an eye on what’s happening in the West. But in my cooking, I’m still very old school in many ways. I don’t do anything scientific, bubbles, foams, and all that. It’s all based on very good taste. That’s very important. Where does it come from? And how do you merge that new cuisine together? It has to have roots.” As an example, he explains his approach to Shi Zi Tou, the traditional “Lion’s Head” pork ball from Shanghai. “That is so traditional. That dish is very sophisticated because the type of pork and the type of braising. You need to fry them, and braise them…..it has to be very smooth in the texture. I do a similar technique, and I would use crab meat on the top, Lyonnaise potatoes on the bottom, and some cabbage from Alsace. Pork in Alsace is very big, so everything makes sense. So there are two roots of a culture, of a cuisine, and it’s merged. And when people taste it, they say, ‘Yeah, I can taste the Asian part. I can taste the Western part.’”