- Mahmoud Zahid and Jody Pennette at Wuji in Rye.
Notes to would-be restaurateurs: When mopping the floor, clean the stainless steel bases of tables by hand; mops leave marks. Hire local chefs; for Chinese food that means a Hong Kong pedigree. Play rock and reggae refracted as bossa nova. In a nutshell, provoke the senses; the last thing you want is ambivalence.
Repeat globally with variations 315 times.
“I want to get them a little off balance and then promote the comfort,” said Jody Pennette, seated opening day in Wuji at 26 Purchase St. in Rye, a Chinese restaurant owned by his company, CB5 Hospitality Consulting, with offices in Greenwich and the U.K. He is a Greenwich High School and NYU graduate and a former L.A. rocker who has been honing the modern restaurant experience for more than two decades.
The Wuji décor is an obvious starting point. “We wanted to avoid that traditional fish-tank style interior,” Pennette said. “It used to be exotic, but now it feels dated. It”™s neither interesting enough nor evocative enough of the culture.” Gesturing to antique pagoda urns behind the bar and parasols above it, he said, “I like to call this kind of a gallery.”
Pennette”™s business partner, friend of 37 years and fellow Greenwich resident is Mahmoud Zahid. “It”™s exhilarating to be in this business with my great partner,” Zahid said. “He is both meticulous and precise. For more than 30 years, we”™ve had this solid, beautiful friendship. Like a good bottle of wine, it just keeps getting better every year.”
An hour with Pennette ”” Zahid joined later ”” elicited the types of details that only come with experience. “Moodi and I think of ourselves as songwriters,” Pennette said, referencing Zahid”™s nickname. “This is an opportunity to perform our own concepts. We”™ve opened 316 restaurants, but we only own the Wuji brand.”
Pennette knows from experience the industry”™s details within details and said it is a new world for dining out.
“Gone is the idea that all you needed was passion, a year in training and a loan from your father-in-law,” he said. “A restaurant today is about making people feel good, using food as a gift or a technique. It”™s about recognizing the customers”™ needs.
“The last thing I want to see in a customer is ambivalence,” he said. “”˜Yeah, I went there; had the chicken.”™ That”™s the worst. I”™d rather hear it was terrible or it was great, but not that.”
Said Pennette, “We”™re taking what”™s been around for decades as America”™s favorite comfort food and applying modern sensibilities: organic farm-to-wok, no chemicals, no fillers.” He said the modern consumer is very aware of health issues. “We use just a little salt and we like to say your clothes will fit you in the morning.”
All Wuji chefs are from China ”” “The consumers should know their chef has a pedigree,” Pennette said ”” and the menu requests appear in the kitchen in both Cantonese and Mandarin. Those chefs, nonetheless, pursue a regimen that came out of San Francisco after World War II, spawning some 40,000 Chinese-American restaurants in the U.S. today. “We offer a bright, fresh flavor that tastes like Chinese food, distilled to be the cleanest, freshest version of this traditional American comfort food,” Pennette said.
“It”™s the Chinese food we all grew up with on Sundays,” he said. “I”™m trying to rescue it from extinction.”
Pennette said there are bastions of real Chinese food in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York and, where he enjoys it, in China, but mostly the Chinese cuisine in the U.S. is made to promote rapid, easy preparation. Wuji, which will serve the traditional likes of vegetable spring rolls, pork spare ribs and lo mein, will prepare its meals organically and to order. Pennette said that can lead to challenges, as when an order is without onions and he must relay that information in the chef”™s native tongue.
The first Wuji opened in Scarsdale last summer. Pennette said the 80 to 90 seat model seems to work well for this concept as it provides enough capacity with turnover to enable 250 guests on a weekend night and still protects from “an emptiness on a rainy night” when only 40 might be dining. The Rye Wuji is around 4,000 square feet and has 90 seats. Scarsdale is about the same and Greenwich when it opens in the Whole Foods shopping center will be the same, as well, he said.
CB5”™s nuances include organic bar drinks, a sleek bike and labels on takeout containers so the contents can be known before opening.
The company”™s future plans include another Wuji in either Stamford or Westport. “The goal is six restaurants and a second wave of six,” Pennette said. “If 12 can prove a good foundation, we would expand beyond that.”
This is the best Chinese you will ever eat. You will never eat again from those fast food wok joints.